Carl from Chicago

Business executive interested in history, economics, taxation and energy policy.

Puffin Movies

by

I went on a trip to Machias Seal Island where there is an Atlantic Puffin colony off the coast of Maine and nearby Canada in 2007. I stayed at a Canadian island near New Brunswick called Grand Manan Island and took a charter boat from a guide to get to the puffin colony.

For an hour I was in a small blind bird watching. There was no light inside the blind so we could see out but (supposedly) the birds couldn’t see inside. However, I am sure that the Atlantic Puffins knew we were there because they kept walking right up to the rocks in front of the blind just a foot or two away and eyeballing us, which was great.

Read more

Muse and the Concert Experience

by

Muse is a British band that is huge overseas but starting to get more of a following in the states. I recently saw them at the United Center (I saw them at Lollapalooza in the rain two years ago, a great show) and it was a very entertaining concert. Their set list from the show is here with links to the songs; someone updated this set list minutes after the show had ended.

I have seen a lot of concerts and the effects on the Muse show were top-rate. I have seen the band Tool which uses intense visuals & who put a lot of effort into their show and I did not see U2 but their last tour obviously looked state-of-the-art, as well.

Recently I saw a comedy special by Nick Swardson, who played “Terry” the roller-skating gay prostitute on the sadly canceled Reno 911! show. In this unlikeliest of places I heard something that made me think… the comedian was talking about how blase we are today, about the special effects for a movie like “Transformers”. He said that if people from the 1950’s saw that movie their heads would explode while today in the 21st century we just take it for granted.

As I watched the effects and sound on the Muse show I thought about how much the sound quality, visual effects and stage quality (the stage components rose and fell independently in synch with all the laser and light effects) and how they would just blow away anything from the 60’s – 80’s. If you brought in the top shows from those years the artists and fans would just stand there, mouth agape as they watched something like Muse, with their integrated lights / effects / and sounds.

As some people (generally baby boomers) talk about how rock music was better in different eras they obviously aren’t considering how much vastly improved the concert experience has been made by modern technology, when properly done. Not only are the visual effects better, but the performers have better microphones and monitors and supporting technicians on hand. The effects in those eras probably only were effective if you provided your own chemicals in the brain as enhancements.

Cross posted at LITGM

2010 IKC Chicago Dog Show

by

Recently I went to the dog show at McCormick place in Chicago. I highly recommend it – a lot of fun, especially if you bring kids. The fun isn’t the judging or the agility contests (which are cool) but involves walking around looking at all the breeds as they are being groomed.

Many of the dogs were in curlers of some sort as they prepared for the show but this one seemed particularly sad.

These two cracked me up – it was the “before and after” as the dogs prepared for the show. You wouldn’t believe the attention and effort that the owners lavished on these animals.

Here is a movie I made with all of my photos. If you can’t see the movie a link is here.
 
 


 
 
Cross posted at LITGM

We’re the Second City (part of the Second State)

by

Whoo hoo! We are definitely the Second City, or maybe I should say, the second state, according to this Bloomberg article:

ILLINOIS, the second-lowest-rated U.S. state after California, will take bids on March 11 from banks seeking to underwrite $300 million of Build America Bonds and $56 million of non-subsidized taxable notes. The deal will finance school construction, according to John Sinsheimer, director of capital markets for Illinois. The state, which last sold Build America Bonds in a $1 billion deal on Jan. 28, is rated A2 by Moody’s, A+ by S&P and A by Fitch. A statutory requirement calls for 25 percent of all state debt to be bid competitively, Sinsheimer said. Banks led by William Blair & Co. will negotiate the sale of an additional $700 million in Build America securities in mid-March, he said. (Added March 2)

Not only is Illinois poorly rated from a credit perspective, we often don’t do a good job of selling the debt. This post described how a Chicago government entity issued bonds and sold them for an uncompetitive price, generating instant profits from the purchasers of that debt. You’d think that since the state of Illinois issues so much debt, at least we’d be good at it, but perhaps not.

Cross posted at LITGM

Wind Power and the Grid

by


The Wall Street Journal wrote a front page article titled “Natural Gas Tilts at Windmills in Power-Generation Feud“. This article was well written and describes a controversy in Texas related to wind energy and their (inherent) inability to deliver reliable power.

Texas is unique in that it is “walled off” from the rest of the USA on its own grid called ERCOT. To be technically correct, the Texas grid doesn’t include El Paso (I used to consult out at El Paso Electric) but that part of the state really is more like New Mexico, anyways.

Texas has a large percentage of wind power – 6% for 2009. The other sources of generation are about 20% for nuclear, 30% for coal, and 45% for natural gas. Per the article:

Texas… has 9,400 megawatts of wind-power generation capacity – more than all the power plants in Utah. Texas has more wind power than any other state… more than three times as much as California.

Power is generally dispatched in the following manner:

1) the grid control operator makes a request for how many megawatts of power that it needs for the next day
2) the various owners of generating capacity (wind, gas, coal and nuclear) submit their available power for the next day
3) the wind power is always taken because it has the lowest incremental cost, along with the nuclear power available as well as coal. Then natural gas is selected until demand is equal to supply, with older less-efficient “peak” gas plants turned off if there isn’t enough demand

The issue is that wind power can’t guarantee its available capacity. In general, if a generation owner “commits” to a certain amount of supply capacity and can’t provide the electricity, then that generation company is charged a penalty for failing to deliver.

Read more