Dallas News, of all institutions, on "What You Can Do to Resist Tyranny" Regions Bank and BankAtlantic might be the top picks among banks that AREN'T funding the DAPL, and have good consumer satisfaction ratings. Wed - T-day eve dinner w/Fr. Craig, Addie, Scott? and ... not Polly... someone with a birthday. And other folks in the parish, of course. No coffee? what the heck. Thu - Pie for breakfast, Hachi for dinner. Hachi is wonderful, they treated us like family even though it was only our secon... (...more)

Left the house at a normal time but arrived at my desk ~8:37, thanks to schools being closed and probably lots of other people taking the day off to cook, clean, shop etc. Right Rev. Jake Owensby, Episcopal Bishop of Western Louisiana on hate ascending in Trump's wake * * * Leadership consultant Marcel Schwantes relays Shawn Achor's 23-minute daily positivity regimen (paywalled, don't expect more than one free read per browser) 1. (2m) Write down three acts of gratitude (ideally for 21 days) - tra... (...more)

The interfaith Thanksgiving service last night was pretty great. Miss Cupcake felt the organ was overbearing and ... I'm accustomed to it but ... let's say I can see where one might feel that way. The propriety of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" as worship music is dubious at best if you ask me. Maybe that's colored by my preference for John Cale's recording, and Cale's lyrics feel merely ironic in their religious imagery - particularly the 4th stanza, "there was a time you'd let me know what's real and [a... (...more)

I heard a long time ago that a package of chicken thighs (or legs + thighs) is super economical and easy to cook, but since I lacked a kitchen per se I only got around to experimenting last night. 40 minutes at 375 with a flip seems to be a good baked chicken thighs recipe. I sprinkled garlic+herb mix, salt and pepper, and sparingly drizzled white wine on one side before it went in the oven, flipped and poured some BBQ sauce on the other side at ~15 minutes. Note to self, the wine added nothing flavorwise ... (...more)

Yesterday in my personal finance review, I noticed my shares of REM had evaluated tremendously, so I glanced at Google Finance's chart and saw something I'd never seen before: a green "split" flag, on Nov. 7. I saw "1:4" and thought, awesome, a stock split must be good, and 1:2 would be sweet enough but 1:4 sounded positively astounding. Well, turns out it was a reverse split, so where I had 45 shares I now have 11. Perhaps the most annoying thing about this was the brutal $36 "reorg fee" the brokerage hou... (...more)