So, we had a cool week. Thursday, PC-Doctor did the coolest thing. They created a day with activities for kids and let employees bring them to work for a day.
Caleb and Ellie came along with me from 8-12 and then came back at 4:30 for a movie. It was great fun. We started off with a breakfast for an hour and then opened up a computer and put parts back together again. Caleb liked it a lot but Ellie rather wanted to draw on her poster.
I grabbed some funny videos. This one is of Caleb walking by my cubicle down the aisle. He had on a button down shirt like Dad and a name badge like Dad and I spiked his hair like mine is spiked. It was fun.
Here is a short video of Caleb and Ellie drawing on their posters between activities.
Georgia, in our accounting group thought the kids would enjoy shredding papers for her. So, they huddled in Pam's office and shred paper. I don't think she expected what ensued - a shredded paper party. It was so funny to watch. Take a look at who is pulling the paper out of the shredder and who at the end had the big wad that flew onto Pam's desk. I thought one of the other adults would stop the fun. I couldn't. I had to keep filming and didn't want to bump the camera. ;-)
And right before lunch, the kids found the dart guns our developers use for entertainment and roamed the cubicles looking for targets. ;-)
We went to lunch, then the kids came back at 4:30 and watched Indiana Jones.
Interestingly, at about 2:30 that day, I felt my first big earthquake, a 3.7 I believe and then a 4.1 15 minutes later. It really messed me up for a good 30 minutes. I got a bit spooked.
Well, Friday night at 11:40 pm, I was sleeping in bed and shot up out of bed. I felt the earthquake that was a 4.7 and got really spooked. Our house moved a good inch, it seemed and it only lasted a few seconds but it sent shivers down my spine. I woke up Sarah and we sat up wondering what to do next. My mind went wild thinking about the gaps in our food storage. I spent 15 minutes trying to calm my nerves and it took another hour for me to get back to sleep again.
It was a bit spooky to think about the culmination of all the things happening in our world - our dependence on gasoline that is edging close to $4/gallon and the banking challenges, our impending recession, drought, famine, war and political unrest across the world.
This article from the WSJ.com hit me pretty hard:
R.O.I.
By BRETT ARENDS
Load Up the Pantry
April 21, 2008 6:47 p.m.
I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food.
No, this is not a drill.
You've seen the TV footage of food riots in parts of the developing world. Yes, they're a long way away from the U.S. But most foodstuffs operate in a global market. When the cost of wheat soars in Asia, it will do the same here.
Reality: Food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund. And there are very good reasons to believe prices on the shelves are about to start rising a lot faster.
"Load up the pantry," says Manu Daftary, one of Wall Street's top investors and the manager of the Quaker Strategic Growth mutual fund. "I think prices are going higher. People are too complacent. They think it isn't going to happen here. But I don't know how the food companies can absorb higher costs." (Full disclosure: I am an investor in Quaker Strategic)
Stocking up on food may not replace your long-term investments, but it may make a sensible home for some of your shorter-term cash. Do the math. If you keep your standby cash in a money-market fund you'll be lucky to get a 2.5% interest rate. Even the best one-year certificate of deposit you can find is only going to pay you about 4.1%, according to Bankrate.com. And those yields are before tax.
Meanwhile the most recent government data shows food inflation for the average American household is now running at 4.5% a year.
And some prices are rising even more quickly. The latest data show cereal prices rising by more than 8% a year. Both flour and rice are up more than 13%. Milk, cheese, bananas and even peanut butter: They're all up by more than 10%. Eggs have rocketed up 30% in a year. Ground beef prices are up 4.8% and chicken by 5.4%.
These are trends that have been in place for some time.
And if you are hoping they will pass, here's the bad news: They may actually accelerate.
The reason? The prices of many underlying raw materials have risen much more quickly still. Wheat prices, for example, have roughly tripled in the past three years.
Sooner or later, the food companies are going to have to pass those costs on. Kraft saw its raw material costs soar by about $1.25 billion last year, squeezing profit margins. The company recently warned that higher prices are here to stay. Last month the chief executive of General Mills, Kendall Powell, made a similar point.
The main reason for rising prices, of course, is the surge in demand from China and India. Hundreds of millions of people are joining the middle class each year, and that means they want to eat more and better food.
A secondary reason has been the growing demand for ethanol as a fuel additive. That's soaking up some of the corn supply.
You can't easily stock up on perishables like eggs or milk. But other products will keep. Among them: Dried pasta, rice, cereals, and cans of everything from tuna fish to fruit and vegetables. The kicker: You should also save money by buying them in bulk.
If this seems a stretch, ponder this: The emerging bull market in agricultural products is following in the footsteps of oil. A few years ago, many Americans hoped $2 gas was a temporary spike. Now it's the rosy memory of a bygone age.
The good news is that it's easier to store Cap'n Crunch or cans of Starkist in your home than it is to store lots of gasoline. Safer, too.
Write to Brett Arends at brett.arends@wsj.com
