My friend Ben Day pointed this out, and I doubled checked his numbers to be sure: since the start of the supposedly pro-business Bush administration, the three major equity indices declined by 18, 33, and 43%, respectively.
January 22, 2001, Index Closing Values
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 10,578.24
Standard & Poor’s 500: 1,342.90
NASDAQ Composite: 2,757.91
December 31, 2008, Index Closing Values
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 8,776.39
Standard & Poor’s 500: 903.25
NASDAQ Composite: 1,577.03
Month: December 2008
New Year’s Eve
I’ve cleaned out the frig, paid bills, put up the new calendars and plan to make a trip to the transfer station this morning, hopefully before the snow gets out of control.
They’re predicting blizzard conditions tonight, which may preclude New Year’s Eve fireworks. I’d probably pass anyway, am still fighting the end of a cold which leaves me spent by about 6 or 7 pm. I’ll miss being in Newport, but maybe next year.
Except for a handful of people, like Barack Obama and Joe Biden, I don’t think there will be many who will look back with joy to 2008. It was a horrible year for me personally, and a very bad year for the economy.
It’s now 10:32 AM, and the snow, which started around 9, is coming down like fury. The roads were covered by quarter to 10. Peter postponed the transfer station run, a good call. I was on my way to their house from Stop & Shop when he phoned. By the time I got to 151, traffic was crawling at 20 MPH.
2008, a lousy year to the bitter end. Happy 2009.
VISTA, in Retrospect
I got a new laptop last month and as has been the case for a while with Windows-based systems, it came with VISTA. I took it as a professional challenge to better understand the problems people have with this operating system and was determined to master it anyway.
Winter Solstice
Last week, it felt like the calendar was stuck around the shortest days of the year, which actually took place on December 22 and 24.
In fact yesterday, Sunday the 28th, was the actual beginning of the consistent lengthening of days, as sunset gets later and later.
It won’t be until January 9 that sunrise gets earlier and earlier. We get to have longer days until the fourth week in June, when the descent to winter starts all over again.
My Bit for the Economy
I don’t like to shop, not even for groceries. I rarely buy on impulse and hardly ever pay full price. Even though diagnosed with major depression, I never succumbed to shopping addiction. In short, I am the retail sector’s worst nightmare, but yesterday, I had not one, not two, but three really good shopping experiences.
Thank Goodness It’s Over
It’s over, thank goodness, and the insufferable “Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays” pseudo-controversies like this one will go away for another year.
Only one more holiday before the relative serenity of January.
Working Doors, Brand New Floors
I spent Christmas Eve and am spending Christmas day in my sister and brother-in-law’s house.
It’s a small but significant cultural shock to be in a home where everything works and the rooms, uncluttered and well-organized, are serene and pleasant.
JET Data Providers and 64-bit VISTA
This is a well-documented issue, but I’m saving these notes anyway because it took a while to figure out.
I’m doing some maintenance on a web application that uses Excel files as data sources.
The files require the JET Data Provider.
The app is running under VISTA on a 64-bit machine.
I was getting the error message “The ‘Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0’ provider is not registered on the local machine.”
For VISTA, the JET .dlls are located in the WindowsSysWOW64 directory, not Program FilesCommon FilesSystemOle DB
I tried re-registering the .dlls. No luck.
Turns out, Jet only has 32 bit versions, so you have to change the target CPU of the app to x86.
In C#, there is no “Advanced Compiler” project property, this is only available in VB.NET.
On IIS7, though, there is an option to run your app in 32-bit mode. In the Advanced Options under the Application Pools where your app is (mine uses DefaultAppPool), there’s an option to Enable 32-bit Applications (it was False by default). Changing this to True worked.
The C# project file does have a section “Platform Condition=” ‘$(Platform)’ == ” “>AnyCPU” It may be possible to edit this, but I didn’t try it.
List of JET .dlls: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/278604
Excellent resource:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/adodotnetdataproviders/thread/45aa44dd-0e6f-42e5-a9d6-9be5c5c8fcd1/
Jet 4.0 db engine service pack download: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/239114
Christmas Past, Christmas Present
There’s snow on the ground with rain likely over the next couple of days, but for now it feels sort of Christmas-like.
For New Year’s 2008, the grandkids and I had a high old time in Newport, including Awful-Awfuls at the Newport Creamery, swimming at the Y, a boat trip to Rose Island, a really nice lunch at the Atlantic Beach Club, and fireworks. Thanks to a break in the weather, we got to Milton and back safely.
This year, kind friends and family have extended no fewer than four invites for Christmas day, but I can’t drum up much enthusiasm. Thanksgiving was a “downer” without Carolyn and now Christmas and New Year’s, probably the last in Milton, will forever be incomplete.
Snow
The back yard, after 8.5 inches of snow:
