Alex Bain's Blog

This site has moved

Thanks for visiting, but I don't think I'll be writing anything here for the foreseeable future.

I write on this site almost every day, and often many times a day. If you had this site bookmarked, you should probably change it to: http://MaximumAlexBain.com

You might also be interested in FurioBain.com

Some thoughts on Superbowl XLII

Here's what I have to say about the game last night:

• The game called to mind the quote from Varsity Blues (but substitute Matt Light or Ellis Hobbs for Billy Bob):
  

  Oh, Big Billy Bob Crybaby!? You cost me my perfect season. How's it feel? My quarterback is off limping, and to top it off I got watch you cry about it?

• The Pats worst offensive player, Matt Light, and worst defensive player, Ellis Hobbs, both really cost the team. Even if Light couldn't have held off the impressive Giants D-line, it'd have been great if he could have remembered the snap count. Likewise, I know that covering Plaxico is a tall order for Hobbs, but it's not like he forced him to make a super-human catch on that final touchdown; he practically broke his ankles when Plaxico threw one juke at him, and he watched the catch from the ground as the game slipped away from us.
• Writers are going to write articles about how we lost because of the bad karma from "cheating" in game 1.
• Writers are going to write articles about how beautiful it is that two brothers won consecutive SuperBowl MVPs. these will be crappy articles.
  
• Some writer will eventually write an article about how, even though we lost, the 2007 Pats still have to be mentioned among the greatest all-time teams.
  
• It was a curious decision not to kick a 48 or 49 yard field goal earlier in the game, opting instead to attempt to convert on 4th and 13. I'd have to love to have had those 3 points at the end of the game, but perhaps Belichick knew something about our kicker that I don't.
• I don't know why the refs forced the Giants to run that final play to get the last second off the clock. That was a crappy move, and some idiot writer will claim Belichick should have sat around and watched it.
• No rational person could have predicted that the Giants would win the game, and just because they did doesn't prove those people right.
• I've heard people mention that this game may have been the biggest upset of all-time. This drives me crazy. People in the media must not want to mention Vegas for fear of sounding like a degenerate gambler, but gambling lines are necessary to back statements like "biggest upset" or "we get no respect". By definition, the Pats win over the Rams was the biggest upset of all time. If one wants to argue that yesterday's win was a bigger upset, they must acknowledge the smaller spread in their argument. You couldn't argue that America really became independent in 1805 without mentioning what went on in 1776.
• As I thought back on painful losses I've endured before, I remember how badly the Sox stung me in 2003. What's nice to remember is that, because we came back and won the next season, I don't exactly carry around 2003 like baggage that haunts me. It makes me think that, if the Pats come back with a vengeance in the Fall 2008, we'll easily be able to put this loss behind us.
• Had we won yesterday, Belichick and Brady have have retired earlier than they might as a result of the loss. I don't know if I would trade a few more years with these guys for a perfect season, but it's a nice consolation prize to think we'll probably have at least 3-4 more years with them as opposed to 1 or 2.
• It sure was fun while it lasted. I had an absolute blast these last 4-5 months just reveling in our dominance. Even if we didn't win it all, these last few months were real, even if it may feel like we imagined it after that crushing loss. I'm still glad I got on the roller coaster. It reminds me of the Miami Vice quote when Crockett calls his ex-wife (the one Bill Simmons once pointed out, watch until the 1:45 mark):

"Caroline, I just gotta ask you something. Me and you, not how we are now,........but then.....it was real right?"

How limits make me better

I love taking on creative projects, but it's a little depressing when they don't turn out well. I've "produced" a number of songs on my Mac, and they make me chuckle, but I won't let anyone else hear them.

Well, I think of Twitter, Vimeo, Flickr, and my two blogs (TypePad and Tumblr) as ongoing, public creative projects. I'm proud when I put up fun or insightful content, and I get down on myself when I haven't posted in a while.

Here's where limits come in: I rarely fall behind on my Twitter or Tumblr posting, because, the way those sights have built their technology, the most you can possibly hope to do with a single post is still pretty simple. It's hard to imagine spending more than 90 seconds updating either.

This is great, because I don't put mounting pressure on myself to do an increasingly better job with those projects. My TypePad blog (this site that you're reading), however, feels a bit daunting at times. I feel like posts here should be longer, contain original content, and frequent.

Lately, I'm finding that I don't enjoy this form of expression as much as Twitter and Tumblr, because of the pressure that comes with it. My response will be the following: instead of posting roughly weekly, as I have been since October of 2004 (even though my archives are incomplete), I'll be posting closer to monthly, going forward. I recommend you subscribe to the site via RSS, through something like Google Reader or NetNewsWire, which are both excellent, free tools that prevent the problem of frequently checking sites, usually blogs, that may or may not have new content since your last visit.

I'm looking for a way to integrate all of the above listed projects into a single site, so that you'll be able to see my pictures, videos, links and commentary all in a single place. I'd even settle for something like what Zach Klein did, where he has a single page that links to everything. AlexBain.com is supposed to serve that purpose, but it's sorely in need of an update.

In the meantime, I'm going to have my Twitter posts streaming into my other blog, MaximumAlexBain.com, so that you can get 95% of what I'm doing all in one place. If you have this site bookmarked, I'd probably replace it with a bookmark to that site. I'll make sure to mention there when anything worthwhile shows up here.

You'll find that site is more about what I'm doing than what I'm thinking, and the updates are real time, coming from my phone, but the pictures are often blurry. If you like that site, you may also like my cat's site, FurioBain.com. He's pretty clever, for a creature without an opposable grip :-)

Uncle Michael Teasing Uncle BJ

My Uncle Michael is hilarious. This is footage he filmed and narrated in the 70's. He's really giving his older brother, my Uncle BJ, a hard time about being chubby. BJ takes it incredibly well. Unfortunately for BJ, his high pitched laugh actually makes him sound a little like a dolphin, which will be funnier after you watch the video.

I don't have footage of it, but I'm sure BJ gives it right back to Michael later that day.

Uncle Michael Teasing Uncle BJ from alexander_bain on Vimeo.

[Here's my description of my trip to the Saratoga races with him this past summer]

I'm about to start a project where I archive a lot of old family movies and photos. I'll make the highlights available on this blog. I have a tag in Flickr for any photo produced by scanning, as opposed to digitally captured. I suppose I'll make the best clips from the old movies available on Vimeo with some sort of similar tag.

My real estate investing beliefs that get me in trouble

How many times have you heard someone say:

"Owning real estate is better than renting because, when you rent, you're throwing money away."

It's such a common sentiment, it can actually be awkward if you try to offer a dissenting view point. The problem is, the conversation quickly gets heated in many cases, because the person with whom you disagree has usually made a significant financial investment in real estate, and they want to defend that investment. Because I'm relatively young, and haven't invested in real estate, I'm quickly labeled as naïve.

Well, I have reasons for the way I feel, and here they are.

There are 6 situations where I think a real estate investment makes sense, and none of them involve avoiding "throwing money away". There's some overlap, or, as we would say in consulting, this list is not M.E.C.E. (mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive):

1. The home you want to live in, has no equivalent that can be rented. For example, there aren't many $10M homes that can be rented. If that's where you want to live and you can afford it, buy it. If you want to live in the building right next to your office to have a walking commute, and that building only has condos for sale, it may make sense to own.
2. Your investment portfolio can absorb the down payment without being overwhelmed. If the $40K down payment on an urban condo is a reasonable % of your portfolio, it can be a great form of diversification, as real estate and securities are somewhat uncorrelated (+0.24 r-squared between US REIT's and the S&P, according to Investopedia). You can get a lot of the benefits of exposure to real estate through financial engineering without actually owning a home (e.g. buying into a REIT), but home ownership preferred by many.
3. You have a unique opportunity that looks HIGHLY likely to prosper. If you have a friend with a lengthy track record of success, who offers you the opportunity to join him in a project, perhaps that deserves a disproportionate allocation in your portfolio. The key is, anytime you're buying real estate, someone else is selling. What do you know that they don't? If your friend is letting you in on his project, is it because he needs capital, or because he sees this as riskier than previous projects? If someone needs to move in a hurry, perhaps because of their career, you may find yourself with a unique, below-market investment opportunity.
4. You live in Florida, and you're at risk of going bankrupt. Not even necessarily imminent Chapter 11 danger, but if it's a possibility worth considering, buy property :-)
5. You lack the financial acumen/discipline to put together a diversified investment portfolio. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Buying a house usually requires the tenant to lock up a large amount of capital for a long time, and continue to pay down their debt over time. Many of these same tenants may have ended up consuming, rather than investing, a good amount of the capital were it not placed in an illiquid real estate investment.
6. The stigma associated with renting. This is the worst reason to invest, but it is a fact that your friends and family may consider you a failure if you are still renting beyond at a certain age. Perhaps this is because they assume you should have saved enough $ by that age to be able to allocate a reasonable % of your savings to cover a down payment on your home.

Am I missing something? Let me know in the comments.

Giving the perfect wedding gift

When it comes to giving weddings, I have a gifting strategy that I feel very strongly about.

First of all, I stick to the registry. I've heard a number of people say that off-registry gifts are a major risk, and that they register for things because they WANT them.

Secondly, you can't "win" the registry. Even if you bought every single item, your cash outlay would not impress the couple that just spent their life savings on a big party with ~100 of their closest friends and family.

So, what do you do? Well, the only thing you can control is the thank you note you're going to receive in a few weeks, so maximize that. The couple will have to write a few sentences about how they love what you got them, so have some fun.

Decide how much you're going to spend, and pick the items on the list that you think it would be hardest to thank someone for if they gave them to you. I like cheese graters, ladels, spatulas, napkin rings, specilty cutlery, etc.

Believe me, it's all worth it when you get a note that says: "We've already had a blast using the lovely oven mitt you bought us."

The problem is, I've shared this philosophy of mine with some friends, one got married, and he called out my hyjinx. Here's an excerpt from the thank you note I received [it ends mid-sentence to protect his identity]...

Please rate the brilliance of this idea:

What's been in my ears

Lately, whenever I turn on my iPod, it's to listen to one of three things:

1. Adam Carolla
2. Ken Burns' Jazz
3. Bill Simmons' iMixes

We'll go through them one at a time.

Adam Carolla's radio show can be downloaded automatically through iTunes, one segment at a time, commercial-free. His style of comedy is not for everyone, but I think he's a genius. Not only is he great at pointing out hypocrisy, like when he rants about how he hates the lottery, but he's also got a very inspirational rags-to-riches story, a community college dropout who fought his way into fame by working his ass off. There's a great LA Magazine article about him, with a quote I think about a lot. He said:

“It’s action that matters. If you don’t like your life, change it. You can change your life. You may feel the same, but if you change your behavior, you will be different.”

Ken Burns' jazz collection has served as a terrific introduction to the world of jazz for me. I've been reading about the genre lately, and intending to listen to more of it, but I didn't know quite where to start. It's intimidating to me, like Starbucks was before I figured out that "venti" meant "large". I'm sure that a year from now, I'll have a good sized collection, and I'll know what I'm talking about, but it's a scary new world to me at the moment.

Bill Simmons is my favorite sports writer, but he also has extraordinarily eclectic taste in music. Whenever he's written about music in the past, I almost always either don't agree with him, or don't know the bands he's talking about. However, he does brag that he always controls the iPod on long car rides with his family or friends, so maybe he's onto something. He mentioned in a column once that he'd put together a few iMixes on iTunes, and when I checked them out, I'd never seen any of the bands before. I was going for a long walk the other day, and downloaded one of them to try it out. It's actually pretty good, and it's not stuff I'd have ever heard otherwise.

Things to do in Florida when you're hungry

It bothered me. It was a slap in the face. I entered Cheeburger Cheeburger yesterday, and my picture was no longer on their wall. You see, this fantastic burger joint snaps a Polaroid if you manage to eat their 20 oz. cheeseburger, and they place you on their wall. you can see behind me in the picture, it's not totally uncommon, but it's no small feat either.

So, I took matters into my own hands. If they wanted to erase me from the records books, they'd have to stop me from repeating my destruction every time I was in town.

I sat down with Billy to recreate history, and, frankly, I was disappointed. I remembered the burger as being more of a challenge. I dusted this thing off in 9 minutes, while actively chatting with Billy, eating fries, and debating what sort of run to go for when I got home (I ended up running 3 miles in 23 minutes about an hour after I finished the burger).

I took a bunch of pictures throughout the meal, to document the process. Here's the link to the Flickr photoset.

Technically, there are two walls at Cheeburger Cheeburger. The "one timers" and the "repeat offenders". Well, I'll be back in town in 2 weeks, and move my Polaroids back to where they belong.

Alex goes to the Celtics game

My brother asked for Celtics tix for Christmas, and my Dad was able to track down 4 of them, so he took all the Bain men.

The seats were unbelievable. We were so close to the floor, I felt like I needed to be stretched and ready to play.

One of the most fun moments of the event actually took place right before the game. The Celtics big new star, Kevin Garnett, has a hilarious pre-game ritual, and I was about 10 feet away from it. He loads his hands full of the talcum powder that they leave out for the players. He then throws the powder right in the face of the Celts' play-by-play guy. I caught it on video. Check it out.

The Celtics crushed the Magic, and in the process they reminded me how much fun it is to see basketball in person.

Another takeaway from the game. Garnett has this unique blend of intensity and humor that he brings to the team. On the one hand, he screams, and he's focused, and he never breaks a smile. Clearly he cannot be happy with a loss. But he also does silly things like the talcum powder, and the ridiculously elaborate high fives. I guess he can get away with being respected while cracking jokes because his talent for the game is inarguably tremendous. I'd like to be good enough at something that I could be a stern-faced leader figure who occasionally cracks wise.

Garnett applies talc from alexander_bain on Vimeo.

Life Expectancy Calculator

If you have some time to kill and want to see how long you have left on this earth, here's a good quick way to find out.

You answer about 20 questions based on your demographics, lifestyle, and family medical history, and it spits out your virtual age and expected of death. It's well designed, and neat to see how the answers impact your health.

It's also flattering to find out I'm a virtual teenager, health-wise (and probably in terms of maturity, too). Even if this news is coming from a website I've never seen before, good news is good news.

It looks like I'm not going anywhere for the next 19,800 days.

This makes me think I should really start saving more for retirement :-)