Did you ever notice that no matter how big or small the turkey is, there is always something left over and usually some of that is thrown away?
The Movie business is something. They spend three years and a hundred million making a movie, and they know in the first week if they are getting the money back, or not. Boy talk about a nail biter.
Funny how the movies that are touted at the film festivals like Cannes, Toronto, Venice, New York, and Sundance seldom make any real money, but the blockbusters that people love are ignored by the “artists” who makes the films. I just looked up the winners at a few of these and frankly I have never heard of any of the films. It’s too bad because I’m sure they are pretty good. But I guess being popular doesn’t make it with the critics, directors, actors, or producers. Of course, they do all go there and get to party no matter how good or bad their films.
I noticed yesterday that the cat cannot get into the house without walking through the hedge that has just been watered and upon arrival, decides to plan himself on my lap. Sigh
Is parking becoming boring or am I becoming jaded? I can’t think of a thing to say, good or bad, about our industry.
Has anything really changed much in the past 30 years in parking? We use credit cards, we attempt to enforce on street rules and still only write 1 in 10 tickets, we build much prettier parking buildings, but cars still go in and out like they did 40 years ago. Except for credit card use, the way we pay for parking hasn’t changed much. Not that many folks use cell phones and let’s face it; here in the US we are using P and D machines that have been used for decades in Europe.
Sure the machines are prettier, the computers a little faster, the ….
Come to think about it, you know the single most helpful new technology that has come out in the past couple of years, “Parking Guidance.” It really works, and makes life so much easier for the parkers, and for the folks who run garages.
The next big thing, as soon as they get it to work, will be individual space monitoring on street. It’s really the only way to figure out how to keep track of inventory and how much to charge for parking.
I know nothing about finance. But I think that Morgan Stanley made nearly all the money it spent in Chicago back already by selling all or part of the deal to a bunch of Arabs. Do you think that was their plan all along? My guess is that it really doesn’t make much difference to them whether it’s profitable or not in the long run.
Of course, it will be. Many cities have such a difficult time running parking operations, particularly on street. It’s that pesky profit motive that isn’t there, having been replaced with attempting to provide a good service to their customers. Come on guys, they aren’t mutually exclusive – Ask Fedex and Nordstroms.
There is a theory that says that if a politician says it, figure out what is exactly the opposite and that will most likely be true. Are all politicians liars? I don’t think so but they say things as they want them to be, not as they are. Politicians are there to affect change, even if none is needed.
How could it be that a right wing white guy like Bush would have more blacks in senior government positions than a left wing liberal black guy like Obama? Or does it just seem that way?
One more – Did you know that oil man Bush’s ranch house in Texas is about as environmentally sound as it can possibly be but that Environmental Cheer Leader Al Gore’s homes have a carbon footprint larger than some small cities.
Why don’t weather folks just look out the window when predicting today’s weather? A storm front went through last night and they called for cloudy skys and scattered showers today. There is not one cloud in the sky, and hasn’t been since 5 AM when Suki and I took a walk. The weather report still says scattered clouds and showers. Is it so complicated?
JVH
