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And today's word is: nihilarian

I get the A.Word.A.Day daily e-mail and today's word seemed eerily fitting to my current mood:

nihilarian
noun: One who does useless work.

Perhaps the folks at wordsmith are trying to tell me I need a vacation?

Auto industry crisis hits home

Somewhere along the line last week I managed to lose one of the center caps, aka hubcab, on my little Suzuki SUV. I would imagine the washboard road we were on up in Page, Az had something to do with it. I dunno, maybe someone stole it - although I doubt a plain, black, plastic cap with no fancy badge or anything on it would be desirable to even the most desperate of thieves. In any case the hubcap is gone and my truck's hub is hanging out there for all to see.

You'd think that getting a replacement part for a fairly popular SUV would be pretty easy. Well, you'd think wrong. Not only is the Suzuki dealership where I've been faithfully taking this truck for oil changes and minor repairs for years gone, but all but one of the Suzuki dealerships in the state are also gone. The last one standing is in Phoenix, a good two hour's drive away. It's sure looking like Suzuki is pulling back from the domestic market. Yikes!

Undoubtedly I'll be able to order the center cap replacement from the parts department at that remaining dealership but this situation does bring up an interesting question: What the hell do you do when your vehicle is no longer supported? In the software business if your vender goes belly-up or end-of-life's your product you're pretty much SOL. For cars there's an aftermarket parts stream but it works best for well-known makes/models/years and then only carries generic stuff like starters, light bulbs, and such. If you need something odd then you'll quickly find yourself crawling around auto recycling yards.

I'm not sure about you, but I suspect that most people find the prospect of dodging junkyard dogs in order to pull a rusty water pump out of a wrecked car undesirable. I also suspect that most people distinctly sense that future possibility when they look at new GM, Chrysler, and Ford vehicles. That would explain the crashing domestic car sales. But I wonder if they're thinking how hard it's going to be to find that replacement hubcap when they buy that Hundai or Suzuki vehicle?

International Talk Like William Shatner Day

Today.... is.... International Talk Like William Shatner.... Day... <inhale>!

Too funny!

(Found via Laura's Birding Blog)

Flat roofs and ice: Not good.

This is a picture of the Flagstaff Hastings Entertainment store two months after the roof collapsed under the weight of tons of snow and ice:

If you recall, around Christmas we had a huge snowstorm followed by warm rain and then a hard freeze. It was a recipe for disaster as all the snow on the store's flat roof instantly turned to ice. The drains that were supposed to empty the standing water away got blocked with ice and it was just a matter of time before it all came crashing down. They were fortunate that it happened when the store was closed and no one was hurt.

Since the collapse they've been slowly clearing out all the salvageable merchandise and roofing debris. The huge piles you see in the picture are the remnants of the roofing materials. Now the store is just a hollowed out shell with no roof.

With the economy in the dumper I half expected Hastings to cut their losses at the Flagstaff location but they didn't. They've since moved the store to a temporary location on the east side of town and will reopen in the old west side location once it's been rebuilt some months from now. What would be really cool is if they kept both stores open afterwards. If they lowered their prices a bit I bet they could kick BestBuy's ass.

I'm sure there's an investing theme here: Perseverance in the face of disaster? Never give in? Always have insurance?

Something like that...

I'm off to hike in Sedona again. Hopefully it won't be too windy.

whitehouse.gov

I dunno how the rest of you feel about it, but the whitehouse website having a blog, RSS feeds, webcasts, and downloadable HD video links is just so frakin' coool! Finally an administration is in D.C. that - at least for now - gives every indication of "getting it" when it comes to technology.

Just trying to help the kids

Plaxico Burress On Gun Safety:

Vote Obama

This is not a political blog post. No, it's another in my series of graff pics from around the NAU campus. This time some kids scrawled "Vote Obama" on the sidewalk:

[ Okay -- I admit it. It is a political post. If you're in the U.S. get out there and vote. For Obama. ]

Why so serious?

We have got to be nearing some sort of meaningful bottom to this mess because the media is treating us to an especially large dose of the sad face this morning:

CNN:

MSNBC has a whole slideshow of the sad face for your viewing pleasure:

And CBS and ABC can't be left out of the glumness:

It's interesting to note that neither of the two "serious" financial news sites that I follow (Bloomberg and MarketWatch) have any sad faces up at all.

Bailout causes credit markets to freeze even more?

Well, the huge Wall Street bailout passed Congress and President Bush signed it into law this afternoon. I suppose we should all be thankful that disaster has been averted. Yet, as indicated by the spiking TED-spread, the credit markets are still under enormous strain. As I type this the spread is sitting at 3.86, near an all-time high:

I know next to nothing about how the credit markets work, but shouldn't the spread be narrowing if things are going to be okay now? That the spread should widen to a new record high even as the bailout passes seems strange to me.

Another odd thing is that the S&P 500 rallied 3.5% into the bailout passage and then abruptly reversed course to close down 1.3%. How's that for a nice 5% intraday whiplash? My neck hurts after that. Obviously Mr. Market has gone insane.

Another message from the parking garage

If you're Wall Street this photo somehow seems apropos after today's rout:

Did you find what you were looking for?

[In case you can't tell, there's supposed to be a fire extinguisher in there]