A long overdue update
It is hard to believe that I have not updated this journal in over 7 months. Where did 2005 go?? I suppose it went to the same place that 2004 and 2003 and 2002 all went. Just seems like yesterday the world was stacking its canned food and buying a generator to combat the Y2K bug. hehehe. It has certainly been a very eventful year in my life and tonight seemed like a good time to give an update to the 1 or 2 people who read this journal.(Maybe 3 on a good day with a strong wind at my back LOL)
So what has happened since May? Well in July I was very fortunate to travel to Edmonton to play in the Canadian Open chess tournament. This was a thrill as the organizers were able to get 3 players from the top 20 in the world to play. This is a huge coup for a Canadian event as it is very unusual to see anybody that high up (Ivanchuck, Shirov, and Bologan) play in an open event and extremely rare to play in an open event in North America and even more doubly extremely rare for them to play at an open event in Canada. Unfortunately I left my brain safely locked in my closet and my play was rather disappointing with 1 notable exception: I was able to draw Viktor Bologan (FIDE rating 2700 #18 in the world) in a simul game. For those not familiar with chess a simul game is where a strong player is playing several players simultaneously. So although it wasn't a rated tournament game it was still a thrill when he offered me a draw. I also was able to play Ivanchuck in a simul but he beat me like a rented mule. (You can't win'em all)
The BSE crisis has partially subsided which was certainly a huge answer to prayer. It was and is hard to fathom the damage a single cow could do. The toll was enormous. A good reminder to carefully consider how much debt you want to carry when your biggest trading partner can completely eliminate your market.
Which segways nicely into my next point about expanding our(by "our" I mean the whole family, my parents and two sisters and myself all own cows) cattle business. We currently calf out about 350 cows which is really not enough for a 4 person operation. However expansion in this area is very difficult due to the high price of land.(Irrigated land sells for 3000-4000 an acre which is way too expensive (alright I take that back, as an unabashed cheerleader of the free market a price is never too high if there is a buyer at that price, so I guess I should say it is too expensive for Graham LOL.) Dryland is cheaper but not nearly productive enough. So I have been looking at farmland in Saskatchewan where land is much cheaper and much more productive. However the state of agriculture is worse that I thought as even with these lower prices things are still difficult to pencil out. One huge benefit of this has been the time I have spent actually calculating the cost of running a ranch, and realizing how difficult things are if you are borrowing to buy the land and borrowing to buy the cattle. I had always assumed that a cow-calf operation in an area with reasonably priced land would be fairly easy to make a living at but that is not the case. One of the things that has struck me through this process is how God can take a circumstance that seems like a trial and use it for a blessing. If I had had the money I probably would have went ahead and just bought the land without really sitting down and attempting to calculate where every penny would come from and where every penny would go. So lack of funds was really a blessing more than it was an obstacle. Having said all that Saskatchewan is still very much on my mind and and starting a cow-calf operation or preferably a feedlot over there is something I am still considering.
I just returned from a Ranching for Profit school in Colorado Springs and it was one stimulating week. It really challenges any and all paradigms about the beef industry and caused me to ask alot of questions about our own ranch. It is so easy to get locked into a production mode where you are chasing higher and higher production when in fact that production is actually costing you money.You end up in a situation where the more you produce the more you lose. Picture in your mind running on a treadmill where the incline is getting steeper and it is going faster and faster, just to stay even you have to move pretty quick. Not sure how to implement all these things I learned there, but certainly more to think about.
I haven't done much printing this year and that is not good. 3-4 jobs and that was it. So that is something that needs to be improved for 2006. I did manage to get one more tract typeset and it is good to have 1 more in our inventory that is always ready to go but we need to distribute more material. It is so easy to say "I am just too busy" but everything else gets done so that is really a lousy excuse. This is really my number 1 goal for 2006, to get tracts printed and sent every month.
I have a very large interest in things financial and 2005 was certainly a year to remember. 15 year highs in the Canadian Dollar, 20 year highs in the Gold market, all time highs in Crude Oil, or to put things more accurately the US dollar declined against everything. Of course running 500 billion dollar deficits tends to make currency traders nervous but I am sure George W has a good excuse. Probably something along the lines of "those rotten Chinese who won't let the Renminbi float." Meanwhile keep those preses running because we need more money to finance misguided and very expensive policies from unconstitutional wars and military operations all over the world to $500,000 for FEMA to develop a plan to evacuate New Orleans in the event of a flood. (hmmm would say someone might have been asleep at the wheel on that one.)
Unfortunately 2005 also marked a tough year for personal liberty. With the Supreme Courts vast expansion on the Eminent Domain Clause in the Constitution we are reminded that the powers that be do not even pretend that you own your own land. Very sad. For a country that was founded on the premise that your property was your property this is a destructive blow. When a condo and casino developer comes to town he has more rights to your land than you do.
George W. is pushing for and it looks he will get the expiring Patriot Act Provisions made into permanent Provisions. A revolution was fought over the importance of things like the 4th amendment which now seems of little importance to the President and sadly to the average citizen. Let's take a break and allow the genius of the United States Founding Fathers to shine though, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized" Call me crazy but apparently the Founding Fathers thought this to be important enough to put in the Amendments to the Constitution. Almost like they knew that a central government might be tempted to violate these rights so they thought they better stop it before it happens.
Freedom is being encroached on from all directions and people are perfectly willing to give up these rights for a little perceived security. Consider the famous quote by Ben Franklin, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Well this has turned into a longer post than I intended and if you are still reading you deserve to be congratulated, so CONGRATULATIONS. (either that or you are a masochist or an insomniac) because I am not good at dealing with crazy people I'll just say CONGRATULATIONS.
Thanks for stopping by for the view from the Capitalistrach.
So what has happened since May? Well in July I was very fortunate to travel to Edmonton to play in the Canadian Open chess tournament. This was a thrill as the organizers were able to get 3 players from the top 20 in the world to play. This is a huge coup for a Canadian event as it is very unusual to see anybody that high up (Ivanchuck, Shirov, and Bologan) play in an open event and extremely rare to play in an open event in North America and even more doubly extremely rare for them to play at an open event in Canada. Unfortunately I left my brain safely locked in my closet and my play was rather disappointing with 1 notable exception: I was able to draw Viktor Bologan (FIDE rating 2700 #18 in the world) in a simul game. For those not familiar with chess a simul game is where a strong player is playing several players simultaneously. So although it wasn't a rated tournament game it was still a thrill when he offered me a draw. I also was able to play Ivanchuck in a simul but he beat me like a rented mule. (You can't win'em all)
The BSE crisis has partially subsided which was certainly a huge answer to prayer. It was and is hard to fathom the damage a single cow could do. The toll was enormous. A good reminder to carefully consider how much debt you want to carry when your biggest trading partner can completely eliminate your market.
Which segways nicely into my next point about expanding our(by "our" I mean the whole family, my parents and two sisters and myself all own cows) cattle business. We currently calf out about 350 cows which is really not enough for a 4 person operation. However expansion in this area is very difficult due to the high price of land.(Irrigated land sells for 3000-4000 an acre which is way too expensive (alright I take that back, as an unabashed cheerleader of the free market a price is never too high if there is a buyer at that price, so I guess I should say it is too expensive for Graham LOL.) Dryland is cheaper but not nearly productive enough. So I have been looking at farmland in Saskatchewan where land is much cheaper and much more productive. However the state of agriculture is worse that I thought as even with these lower prices things are still difficult to pencil out. One huge benefit of this has been the time I have spent actually calculating the cost of running a ranch, and realizing how difficult things are if you are borrowing to buy the land and borrowing to buy the cattle. I had always assumed that a cow-calf operation in an area with reasonably priced land would be fairly easy to make a living at but that is not the case. One of the things that has struck me through this process is how God can take a circumstance that seems like a trial and use it for a blessing. If I had had the money I probably would have went ahead and just bought the land without really sitting down and attempting to calculate where every penny would come from and where every penny would go. So lack of funds was really a blessing more than it was an obstacle. Having said all that Saskatchewan is still very much on my mind and and starting a cow-calf operation or preferably a feedlot over there is something I am still considering.
I just returned from a Ranching for Profit school in Colorado Springs and it was one stimulating week. It really challenges any and all paradigms about the beef industry and caused me to ask alot of questions about our own ranch. It is so easy to get locked into a production mode where you are chasing higher and higher production when in fact that production is actually costing you money.You end up in a situation where the more you produce the more you lose. Picture in your mind running on a treadmill where the incline is getting steeper and it is going faster and faster, just to stay even you have to move pretty quick. Not sure how to implement all these things I learned there, but certainly more to think about.
I haven't done much printing this year and that is not good. 3-4 jobs and that was it. So that is something that needs to be improved for 2006. I did manage to get one more tract typeset and it is good to have 1 more in our inventory that is always ready to go but we need to distribute more material. It is so easy to say "I am just too busy" but everything else gets done so that is really a lousy excuse. This is really my number 1 goal for 2006, to get tracts printed and sent every month.
I have a very large interest in things financial and 2005 was certainly a year to remember. 15 year highs in the Canadian Dollar, 20 year highs in the Gold market, all time highs in Crude Oil, or to put things more accurately the US dollar declined against everything. Of course running 500 billion dollar deficits tends to make currency traders nervous but I am sure George W has a good excuse. Probably something along the lines of "those rotten Chinese who won't let the Renminbi float." Meanwhile keep those preses running because we need more money to finance misguided and very expensive policies from unconstitutional wars and military operations all over the world to $500,000 for FEMA to develop a plan to evacuate New Orleans in the event of a flood. (hmmm would say someone might have been asleep at the wheel on that one.)
Unfortunately 2005 also marked a tough year for personal liberty. With the Supreme Courts vast expansion on the Eminent Domain Clause in the Constitution we are reminded that the powers that be do not even pretend that you own your own land. Very sad. For a country that was founded on the premise that your property was your property this is a destructive blow. When a condo and casino developer comes to town he has more rights to your land than you do.
George W. is pushing for and it looks he will get the expiring Patriot Act Provisions made into permanent Provisions. A revolution was fought over the importance of things like the 4th amendment which now seems of little importance to the President and sadly to the average citizen. Let's take a break and allow the genius of the United States Founding Fathers to shine though, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized" Call me crazy but apparently the Founding Fathers thought this to be important enough to put in the Amendments to the Constitution. Almost like they knew that a central government might be tempted to violate these rights so they thought they better stop it before it happens.
Freedom is being encroached on from all directions and people are perfectly willing to give up these rights for a little perceived security. Consider the famous quote by Ben Franklin, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Well this has turned into a longer post than I intended and if you are still reading you deserve to be congratulated, so CONGRATULATIONS. (either that or you are a masochist or an insomniac) because I am not good at dealing with crazy people I'll just say CONGRATULATIONS.
Thanks for stopping by for the view from the Capitalistrach.