Our newest family member!

Presenting: Virginia "Geena" Lee Roberts
Born on Nov 25th, 2008
5 lbs 14 oz
20 in long

Mom and baby are doing awesome! Thank you all for your love and prayers! We look forward to seeing you all sometime soon!

-Brooke

Is does this make sense to you?

A column by a New York Times columnist, Thomas L. Friedman:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/opinion/16friedman.html

Apparently, we all need to go shopping and throw out "fairness" -- meaning, of course, that we reward stupidity, punish good sense, and hold the government harmless. In one respect, though, he's right: Obama is just the man for the job.

Sorry, Tommy, I care not for your opinions. I'm neither stupid nor a socialist. Get someone else to go shopping, and don't give any more of my money to AIG.

Free Markets are [Probably] Rational

Whilst on my drive home yesterday I listened to the daily financial show, Marketplace, that comes on at 6pm on our NPR station. The story, for which I have attached a link below, bemoaned how markets are irrational. And this contrary to the theory put forth by Milton Freidman that they should be rational. When they say rational, we mean that we expect market prices of stocks to behave in accordance with the appropriate information. If profits and revenue at Company Z are up, then the stock price should go up. If the credit rating of Company B is downgraded, then the price should go down. But this isn't bearing up in what we are seeing in the market today.

I would argue that a FREE market would more than likely be rational. The reason our markets today are not behaving rationally is because they're not free. Can anyone guess the true market value of GM stock? No. And no because the price of GM stock today has a lot more to do with what the government may or may not do in its little magic box than what GM is actually worth.

This same logic applies to any bank stock in existence today. And this spreads from there to the entire economy because of the equally magic and mysterious "securities" created by a bunch of MBAs -- otherwise brilliant people I'm sure, aside from being so stupid. Well the rest of the economy bought this financial junk, gambling on the brains of an MBA degree. Now nobody knows what they or anybody else actually owns in terms of assets.

A lot of, again, otherwise brilliant people, forgot one of the investment rules of thumbs that only applies to us individuals of little brain: if you don't understand what you are investing in, you probably shouldn't.

Here's the link to the article: http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/11/10/economic_theory/.

One of the Joys of Home Ownership

As I am sure Dad can attest from our tenure in the Roebuck home, one of the joys of home ownership is being the proud guardian of the crawl-space. Seeing as our bathroom floor had been described with adjectives like "squishy", it became necessary for me to venture into the underbelly of the home to see what was amiss. Out of my own benevolence, I've invited you all along on a photo tour, and have even extended to Dad the deluxe-package personal tour. I'll spare all of the details because I am sure that you will all be eating at some point in time in the future. I thought about giving the Tennessee Cooperative Extension a call to see if they had a mycologist sitting around needing something to do...I'm pretty sure he could find a new species of fungus in here. So in we go.

Now our house, though only 1,450 square feet, has been added onto once. So apparently it was in vogue at one point in time to build one bed-room one bath houses. Anyway, so in-stead of just your ordinary crawl-space. we have a crawl-space that is only accessible from another crawl-space. And on top of that the inner crawl-space door is 80% blocked by a return duct. So after squeezing through an 8 inch wide by 2 foot tall opening, you then have to run the gauntlet to get where you are going. Yes, indeed, that is an old lawn-mower, two pairs of old boots, several random glass jars, and various and asunder other bits of junk. Also know as habitats.



So after crawling underneath by bath-tub and kitchen, trying to figure why a plumber gets paid what he does, and having a brief conversation with a camel-cricket convent, its time to meander back through the gauntlet and out into the light of day. Easier said than done.



I hope you all had a good weekend. Ours was fine, though parts of it were a bit cramped, dark, and musty.

We Actually Did Something

Unlike another branch of the Roberts family (that might live in the DC area), the Tennessee edition likes to take things rather slowly. We go to bed at a decent hour, and wake up relatively early. We don't spend a lot of money, don't eat out much, and generally don't have extensive plans for our weekends. Believe it or not, though, we actually had meaningful "plans" for three weekends in a row. Staggering, I know. Here's the run-down:

The weekend of October 18th we had two things going on. That Saturday we had our annual (if you can call something annual after only having two in a row) bon fire / weenie roast. I am pleased to inform that good times were had by all. That Sunday afternoon, our church hosted a concert by a gentleman named Jaime Soles from Canada who has an incredible brand of Bible-based music. Most of his songs are geared for kids, but not all. His music is very narrative, drawing on some of the prominent and obscure bits of Old Testament history. So, of course there a song about Noah and Abraham, but he also has a song about Shamgar killing 600 men with an ox-goad, Ehud giving fat-ole Eglon 18 inches of sword, and (one of Timnah's favorites) Korah, Dathan, and Abiarim being swallowed by the ground. Good stuff.

The following weekend, we had our friends from Florence, Becky and Eric, in town for a few days. We had a great time with them. The pictures I sent out last week of our family on a short little hiking trek were actually pictures that they took for us. I tried to convince Eric that the Nashville area needed some more pharmacists so he would stay, but alas, they returned.

And then last weekend was fairly tame, but some friends of ours from church had a Reformation Day party on their parents estate. That too was a great time. They had bratwurst and kielbasa (a step up from the franks we had at our shin-dig), a live bluegrass band, and a hay-ride.

For the foreseeable future, though, I think we are back to the settled, country life. No more of this urban whoop-in it up -- I about pulled a social muscle.

Democrats and Halloweeen...

This was sent to me by a mom in my youth group. I loved it:)

Kid quotes from the election

A conversation that I had with Kate Jeffcoat, a 5-year old at Cherokee Bend...I also know her family very well.
Mrs. Batts: Kate, why do you look so sad?
Kate: My parents aren't going to have any money for my birthday now.
Mrs. Batts: What do you mean Kate? When's your birthday?
Kate: My birthday is November 19th and my parents aren't going to have any money to buy me a birthday present now that Obama has been elected!

Conversation overheard while walking through the 2nd grade hallway
Kid 1: I'm not voting for McCain, i'm voting for Obama.
Kid 2: Oh yeah, why?
Kid 1: McCain is going to send us to war and Obama is not.
Kid 2: What do you think we are in silly?

Quote from perhaps the spaciest kid in my class this year...
"So if Obama is an African-American, does that make him black too?"

Kids say the darndest things these days! That is just a sampling, I've definitely got more where that came from.