So what happens when you book a hit performer to 50 concerts and sell out to the tune of $85 million for all his tickets and he dies? Some of the work for these concerts has happened now so there's that expense to be paid, and a bunch of angry fans not getting to see your star performer want their money back. Big $$$ lost.

Interestingly our star performer was given physicals before going on tour and given a clean bill of health. But now our insurer has some serious $ to cough up...Yeowch

Anyways farewell Michael Jackson...

Once again we learn about disaster preparedness and redundancy and why you check, recheck, and check again. Have a backup plan in case all that fails as well when lives are at stake.

My apartment was near that Tornado warning, and of course we learned about it through the Weather Warning Radio we got rather than the SMS warning system I signed up for. At least we learned about it somewhere. Fortunately it got nowhere near us.

It's a recession I'll grant Amex that.

For 5 years I've been a holder of an Amex Gold card. It's seen me through thick and thin, with an awesome rewards program and all sorts of other goodies. But lately I'm feeling the shaft from them.

First, they've decided that 4 weeks from statement closing date to payment due date is too much. Now I'm down to 2, not a huge deal but it disrupts my budgeting and I had to draw from savings rather than wait for a paycheck, highly annoying me. The only reason I can see Amex doing that is because they want to increase the likelihood that I'll pay late, and incur a fee.

Then the other bad news, my interest rates everywhere have gone up 4%. I don't keep a balance, but yowch!

Ok Amex I'll take the hint that I'm no longer welcome at your bank. Fortunately others still do appreciate my history with them. Sayonara Amex!

All Sunday our weather alert radio was signaling us "Warning This, Alert That" as Tornadoes struck Southern Denver with a good chunk of the rest of Colorado getting hit with some nasty, Tornado potential Thunderstorms. Freaks you out the first time that happens I suppose.

So it looks like all we've really done is trade one disaster (Earthquakes) for another disaster (Tornadoes) when we moved here. Fair enough at least you can (mostly) see the Tornadoes coming and take shelter. I like my disasters when they make an appointment, even 10-15 minutes ahead of time :-)

Saw the Palm Pre available today for $199 at my Sprint Store. My thinking was "oooh hot new phone for only $199!" It's a relatively feature rich lil' bugger that's been getting decent reviews. Then I noticed the plans I have to buy with it, and decided I'd rather not give Sprint nearly twice what I'm giving them now. Forget it Palm/Sprint come up with a more rational monthly plan.

It never gets old, you go out to your car on a Monday morning and find the local friendly adolescent has made your car the TP'ing victim for the night. This one had a unique twist, using rotten bannana before layering over with TP, fun fun fun...

If this keeps up I'll put a webcam with a battery in my car to snap some pics of him hopefully, then nail his a$$ to a wall. It's harmless but annoying dammit!

In today's paper, the Reporter Herald talks about cash incentives for businesses to move to Loveland. In my opinion when done cleverly this can be a great way to fill a few jobs for residents in the city. However there are many ways this can backfire if not done right, a few thoughts specifically:

• Is the city of Loveland requiring x jobs from the company for x amount of time? Specifically I envision a company moving in then immediately holding a mass layoff, great return for our value there...
• How long must the company stay in the city? Specifically I envision a scenario where they drop in, then drop out later...

Likely I would be structuring these packages as loans. These loans are forgiven by a formula that subtracts by time spent in the city employing x number of employees. Should a layoff or move-out occur, the balance is forgiven at a smaller rate. I'd also ensure a floor is set so if they decide to move out completely or go below a certain number of employees, the balance is immediately due in full. With that in mind, incentivize away!

Can't wait for Boondocks to open here in Loveland, sounds like a Blast, just think Laser Tag!!! Or here is the article.

Seriously, this can't open soon enough, much appreciated way to spend all my money :-)

I hate to rat on the Kindle when I'm an Amazon.com associate, but I will. Amazon.com has one of the best tools to replace books outright, but they'll never come close, and these are the reasons there are still a pile of books on my desk:

• Mostly DRM, Amazon has a right to pull a book offering at any time, and if that happens and my copy is lost, I'm screwed the money I paid for the book, never to see it again. But Amazon.com can't go into my house and take my books (even if they were stolen unless they got a warrant).
• What happens if the Amazon.com servers go out of business themselves? Can I ever get my book back? Can I get new books for the Kindle from someone else? Other E-Book formats may not have this problem (there are book vendors aplenty for the MobiBooks and Adobe formats) but there is only one amazon.com...
• Price: That $359 price tag is large, and you don't save much per book going paper. Maybe $5-10 tops per book, so 36 books later (about what I buy in 3 years) the Kindle will pay for itself.
• If my kindle breaks, it's the same $359 for a new one, then I'm downloading most (probably not all, see above) books again. If a paper book gets hosed, $40 for a new one give or take
• Secondary market for e-books? I'm done with my ebook and want to sell/give it away, good luck...

I'm sure there are several other reasons, but this is the big list Amazon.com needs to address before I'll even consider getting a Kindle. Case closed...

So once again I move into a new neighborhood, and within months the grocery store labor unions in my area (with emphasis on King Soopers) think about striking again. It feels like Deja Vu.

First off, I'm not sure what to anticipate from this, Kroger's (King Soopers Parent company) is doing fairly well, meaning they can afford to give a few bucks. Though I anticipate they will reluctantly not knowing where this recession is headed. It's nice to have a few bucks in the savings account when you're a business in a downturning economy. However should the workers strike, the unemployment situation is very high, even in Colorado. There will be a bunch of temp workers lining up to take their place. There is absolutely nothing stopping Kroger's from turning temp workers into full-time workers and firing the strikers if Kroger's likes.

Second, and more personally, I'm a creature of habit. When my grocery store (Vons in this case) went on strike the first time, I felt bad about crossing a picket line and went to Trader Joe's, Target and Costco to replace Vons. However when the strike was over, I still hardly ever went to Vons mostly out of habit and well Trader Joe's was so much better and cheaper. The second time for this, I have the Wal-Mart supercenter and Whole Foods Market lined up as replacements, King Soopers can only pray I don't find them that much better and cheaper.

Be careful about what you're doing dear Grocery store workers, and be grateful for what you got, many are not this lucky.