At the Dome

Saw Keynon Phillips (#80) play at the Metrodome today! His team -- the Eastview Lightning -- played really well but lost against a tough and fast Pearl Park team that got some breaks in the 2nd half. Here are some photos (the blurry one is of Keynon just after he made a catch in the first quarter).

Here is a video of a very nice fourth down catch for a first down.

Packers vs. Colts

Here are some photos from our trip to Green Bay for yesterday's Colts-Packers game.

There is a reason Ann is smiling in front of the sign that says "Ticket Problems." As Ann is passing out the tickets to me, Dave and Kyle one of us notices that the tickets say "Green Bay vs. Detroit Lions" and are for the last game of the season on December 28th. Yes, Ann stuffed the wrong tickets in her purse when we left from Minneapolis Sunday morning. Luckily, the ticket office was able to re-issue tickets for us to get into the game, which is why Ann is smiling.

Here is a video clip of a fourth-quarter play that won't be part of Peyton Manning's Hall of Fame highlight reel.

Dalmatian Coast

The next-to-last leg of our September trip was along the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia with stops in Split and Dubrovnik. Here are a whole lot of pictures.

Dubrovnik has a little of the flavor of Venice, without the canals: compact, stunningly beautiful, and deluged with tourists. Cruise ship shuttle boats started storming the docks at around 9 or 10 am and the walled part of the city was almost insufferably packed by noon. But in the evening things quieted down again. If you visit Dubrovnik, spend the night.

We all got drunk

Gerald F. Davis's short article "Who's to blame?" is one of the best things I've read about the causes of our current economic problems. The bottom line is that not balancing your budget has consequences.

On a less serious note: if you need to find a half-way point to meet with someone, check out MeetWays. It even finds coffee shops or restaurants near the half-way spot. Pretty neat!

Zagreb and Plitvice Lakes National Park

The trip continues from Slovenia to Croatia. After a brief stop in Zagreb for lunch, we spent a day at Croatia's Plitvice Lakes National Park. Here are some pictures.

The park-run hotel we stayed at had an early 70s throwback decor because the place hadn't been remodeled at all since the early 70s. Still, it was clean and pleasant enough. And the decor was kind of fun -- if you keep anything long enough it comes back into fashion.

Our hikes through the park itself were spectacular, despite the rain. Actually, the rain may have kept the crowds away, which supposedly can get pretty big, and it kept the water flowing over all of the beautiful waterfalls.

Slovenia

Slovenia. Tiny. Photogenic. Fun!

Lots of pictures here from the charmingly small and tidy capital, Ljubljana, and from the tourist town of Bled. They like to ride bikes in Ljubljana. Note the dude making a cell phone call while riding his bike (we saw this more than once)! And they really like to hang out in cafes. Great food in Bled, and we got to see our shadows while strolling around the lake.

Budapest

Great city. Kind of like Paris but with better public swimming facilities. Here are some photos.

I don't do captions at SmugMug so here are a few details:

• The Gerloczy Hotel and Cafe is where we stayed and is where the spiral staircase photo was taken (along with some others);
• The museum shots are from the amazing House of Terror museum, which remembers and memorializes Nazi and Soviet oppression of Hungary and Eastern Europe in the 20th century;
• Being named Attila is a-ok in Hungary;
• They seem to like frogs.
  

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Whatever your feelings about the bailout bill, it's useful to understand what caused the economic downturn that led to its passage so we can learn from our past mistakes.

The story of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac explain a big part of it, as historically neither company has been subject to really any scrutiny or oversight in their government-guaranteed lending practices. Check out this succinct history of the companies. Here's a noteworthy excerpt: "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the only two Fortune 500 companies that are not required to inform the public about any financial difficulties that they may be having." These private companies get to play with our money in the mortgage markets -- a LOT of our money -- without any direct oversight or control. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in other words, are like the Blackwater of the U.S. mortgage markets. The lack of transparency in these companies is a big reason for the economic issues we are facing today.

Let's hope our government can exert some financial restraint now that it is able to buy shares in two frighteningly large and unregulated companies. We should be paying very close attention to whomever Obama or McCain select as the next Treasury Secretary and we (i.e., Congress) should be demanding greater transparency from the Treasury Department so those guys don't "run wild" the way the mortgage lenders have.

Eger, Hungary

Whew! We're back from our 3-week trip through Central Europe. I gave up on blogging from the road to leave more time for travel experiences. Great trip despite the weather, which was almost comically disappointing after Prague. All of Europe was experiencing unseasonably cool and rainy weather in September. But the rain seemed to follow us around in particular.

Here are some pics from Eger, Hungary, a lovely small town where we had a chance to catch our breath a bit after busy days in Prague and Krakow. Eger is where the Magyars held off the Turks against extraordinary odds (hence the murals). In addition to chilling out at our hotel -- well, warming up -- we saw a delightful organ concert at the Eger Cathedral, a Marzipan Museum, and the local college's Astronomical Museum, which has a large camera obscura on its rooftop. By moving the rooftop mirrors around we were able to watch the street level activity of nearly the entire town in surprising detail, kind of like a live TV feed. The vendor at the marketplace standing next to Ann is wearing a Vikings cap for some reason. He was happy to learn that we were from Minnesota, especially since it helped get us to buy a couple of pears off of him.