It is also unfortunate that citizens that have worked hard and acted prudently will now be forced to pay off the debts of those who acted frivolously. This country has lost the sense of self reliance and responsibility that made us great to begin with. I am saddened to watch the greatest free market system in the world be brought to an end in the span of a couple weeks.

With that said, damn did you see that market rally today :)

Before we left, I grabbed my Tom Bihn day pack, filled two Nalgene bottles, and then off to the trail head. When I was looking down on the lake, my mind started to wander and I realized the pack exactly the type of product I wanted to discuss here.

I've owned this pack for 12 years, and it has been more places with me than I care even remember, and it still looks and functions like new. Years ago, when I was interning in San Jose, my Jan Sport pack fell to pieces and I wanted a replacement that would out last it, and the mainstream packs didn't instill confidence. I happened into Tom Bihn's small shop in Santa Cruz, and met the designer himself. I knew I wanted one of his packs.

At the time, Tom's packs and bags were made in California from heavy nylon with extra large zippers, a padded back, and held together with perfectly stitched seams. Tom himself seemed to care about the product he was creating. While some mainstream designers have taken to the same over sized design esthetics, I can't imagine any would ultimately be as bomb proof or as well made as this pack.

I pondered the decision, as the pack was about $100, about twice most mainstream day packs of the time, and for a student it was good money. I now expect the pack to last at least another 8 years which would it put its useful life span at 20 years. I think it was money well spent.

A couple years ago when I was looking for a messenger bag, I was happy to find that not only was Tom Bihn still in business, but they had grown considerably. I was even more pleased to find that although the company had moved to Washington State, it had stuck to its original values and still made high quality bags in the U.S. My "new" messenger bag gets daily hard use and it too has been flawless.

The formula:

• High Quality Materials
• Hand production
• Attention to detail
• Experience

The result: I whole heartedly recommend the company to anybody who asks about my bag, and they have kept me as a customer. I am now considering a small messenger bag, and their site is first place I will look.

In California I ordered Margaritas on the rocks with salt and they became an acceptable alternative to beer after a bike ride on a hot day. When I first made margaritas myself I used a florescent green mixer I bought at Safeway and Cuervo Gold. The result wasn't very good, and these bottles have been sitting on my liquor shelf for 4 years now:

I never truly understood Margaritas until Kathryn and I found Tommy's in an unlikely location in one of the foggiest districts of San Francisco. While the bar and restaurant is probably home to more roaches than we'd like to admit, they have by far the best (and most intoxicating) Margaritas I've ever had.

Their recipe is simple:

• 100% agave tequila
• Fresh lime juice
• Simple syrup
• Ice
• Salt

To the left of the door at Tommy's there is a huge pile of limes, and that's the key. No mixes. Only fresh, hand made cocktails. High quality materials, hand production, attention to detail, and experience. This is a recipe for a quality product.

The overall cost of option 1 (florecent mixer and Cuervo) and option 2 (fresh limes and agave tequilla) isn't much different. Agave tequila is now plentiful at most liquor stores, and I bought one that was on sale. 14 limes, enough for ~7 margaritas, cost $2 at the local produce market.

Unfortunately, I believe the lack of emphasis on skilled trades and manufacturing in the U.S. has decreased our ability to value goods. Modern consumers rely on branding and advertising to shape perception and purchasing decisions. As a result we have become poor judges of quality and often we receive poor value for our dollar.

As a consumer, I have obsessively sought out U.S. made goods. I'm not a card carrying union member or flag waving patriot, but I believe many leading U.S. companies lost much of what made them great when they abandoned their U.S. manufacturing base for lower cost operations. Some of them lost my business as the choice to move manufacturing offshore wasn't driven by the desire to increase quality, but to decrease costs.

We are now inundated by parades of container ships, but it is increasingly difficult to find goods that offer both quality and value. I find it almost impossible to discriminate between goods sold at Wal-mart from those available from what were formally well regarded department stores.

But I believe attitudes are changing. We are more informed consumers, and as a result of increased commodity prices and a decrease in the value of the U.S. dollar, I believe there will be a shift from the multitudes of low quality goods, to fewer, classic, durable goods of high quality. So after a hiatus from blogging, I'm starting anew with a focus on the things I love (or hate) and our interaction with them.

Volkswagen plans to lower its exposure to the weak dollar by exporting about 125,000 vehicles from North America and Mexico to Europe, people familiar with the company's plans said. By increasing production in locations that use the dollar, VW can reduce the proportion of components and vehicles that are made in regions that use the euro.

I have been wondering when a weak dollar would trickle into increased US exports.

I hope I am wrong, but I think bad times are upon us. Maybe slowing demand will burst the commidity bubble, but we aren't there yet. If oil prices remain constant we will see inflation that is unprecendanted in my adult life. Commodity inflation costs have yet to be passed to consumers, but at somepoint they will be or many firms will be bankrupt.

This also going to sound crazy, but I'm planning on living big in the next few months before the commodity prices catch up. Many things I enjoy in life sushi, beer, fresh fruit, etc are extremely commodity intensive to produce. Right now sushi restaurants haven't raised their prices. I believe I can eat and live well while restaruants and retailers absorb the increased costs. At some point this will run out and they will pass the costs on to me. In the mean time I am eating fresh fruits, vegetables, and sushi like they are going out of style, because they will be. Mark my words, I will not be able to buy toro at these prices next year.

Or my bearishness might mark the top of the oil market. Time will tell.

Few people get rich making equity investments at less than half the rate of return of an average money market fund. I don't know how Sun financed the deal, but if they leveraged it at all, there is a good chance they will be losing money out of the gate with this investment.

Maybe for a company with a rock solid balance sheet and a record of extracting maximum value from their acquisitions, this deal might make some sense. JAVA doesn't meet either of those criteria.

But wait, there's more. If Sun's customers plan to extract an enterprise level of functionality from MySQL, they basically have no option but to use the InnoDB storage engine to underpin the SQL front end. And guess who owns that. That's right, Oracle, the 800 lbs gorilla of the SQL market. The rocket science ain't in the SQL parser. It's in the storage layer, and that didn't come with the $1 billion price tag.

BTW, the J2EE 6 installer blew up on us when we tried to install it on Linux x86_64, and judging by their own news groups, we're not alone. Mr. Schwartz, for a mere $1 million I'll get that working for you, and you'll get your platform back. It's one hell of a deal if you think about it.

Occasionally folks ask me for investing advice. WARNING! I AM NOT A FINANCIAL ADVISOR AND YOU WOULD HAVE TO BE CRAZY TO TAKE MY ADVICE. But here it is anyway. Go to Vanguard's web site. Figure out what year you will turn 60. Find a fund called Target Retirement Fund N, where N is closest to the year you will turn 60. Buy that fund (hopefully in a tax deferred account) and add to it on a regular basis. Vanguard Target Funds offer an inexpensive mix of U.S. domestic and foreign stocks and bonds by investing passively in multiple broad market indexes. The funds automatically rebalance to favor lower risk investments as you approach retirement age.

I have almost all my personal savings in index funds and fixed income, but I do have a very small part of my portfolio in wild card stocks that I pick myself. I DO THIS FOR FUN AND DO NOT COUNT ON THE MONEY I ACTIVELY INVEST FOR THE SHORT TERM. There is a really good chance I will under perform the Target Retirement fund, and I accept this risk.

So if I happen to mention a stock I'm buying on my twitter, take it for what it is: a long shot bet that I am making to amuse myself.

JWZ crafted a clean exit from software and went on to do something completely different, risky, yet pretty cool, and appears to be successful at it. I think there are stereotypes which box developers into narrow roles, but Jamie's writing on DNA chronicles a deft navigation of club ownership in SF. The skills required for software crossover; no doubt.

Yesterday K and I attended the Treasure Island music festival, and we queued up for the Ferris Wheel directly behind Evan Williams (and no I wasn't following his tweets (although some 3000 people were)). I think it is fair to say that Evan Williams is one of the reasons people know what blogging even is.

Having the social skills of your typical geek, I had one of those moments where I wondered what to do. Should I introduce myself, or just not say anything? I did introduce myself, but the exchange was about as comfortable as you would imagine (not very).

To equate this to the offline world, imagine an author who hasn't gone mainstream, but who's work you admire. If she is queued ahead of you at Starbuck's. What do you say? "I love your new book?" What else is there to say?

And this isn't first time this has happened to me.

This is a new problem of the online social networked world. The long tail of fame creates people, such as Robert Scoble, who many would recognize, but are not famous. And the chances that you'll meet one of these people hanging out in the Mission District is actually pretty high.