Bravata

This guy will not quit!

Ok, let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say he was innocent and did not steal 53 Million from his investors. Well then you have to realize that the debts owed on the properties were more than the properties are worth. The SEC says the value of the properties is worth around 10 million, and he raised 53 million, so either he stole the money, or lost it in the real estate market.

SO, if he didn't steal it, he may be the worst real estate investor of all time. I totally understand the market crashed, but come on, you're going to say that you're innocent and didn't steal the money, but then you are basically saying you suck at investing. I'm not sure what is worse, to admit you stole it or admit you're the worst businessman of all time!

Update - now he is back at it again and more.

His website is back up here and his unbelievable "everything I touch turns to gold" is still here.

With all the court cases and allegations and cease and decist, I don't understand how he can still have these websites up and running.

I Can't Contain My Excitement...

The official kickoff to college football season is next Thursday September 2. The game I'll be watching that night is Marshall @ Ohio State. But the real start of the season for me is Saturday September 4 with Uconn @ Michigan (3:30 kickoff). I'm very eager that weekend with three of my fellow umich grads coming to stay with us - this includes a half-day of work on Friday and Monday (Labor Day) off.

Uconn is ranked preseaon #22 and Umich is unranked. However, umich is favored by 3 points probably because it is a home game and we always get a little more respect than a uconn type team from the vegas pollsters.

Michigan had one of the best offenses in the big ten last year and we have nearly all of our players returning including Tate Forcier and Denard Robinson. We should be able to score a lot of points again. However, our defense is a HUGE question mark. Not only were we HORRIBLE last year but we lost our two best players (Brandon Graham and Donovan Warren) to the NFL. So I expect the defense to be weak again; we will need to outscore the opposition to win. Fingers crossed.

Finally, on Monday September 6 we have Boise State @ Va Tech. While normally I don't have too much interest these two teams, this game is on my watchlist. Why? Because I am not a fan of the current BCS format. And if Boise (preseaon #4) can beat a Va Tech (preseason #5), then they are likely to finish the season undefeated. And with a preseaon ranking of #4, it is likely they could be #1 or #2 to finish out the season, forcing a bid into the BCS championship game. It is likely Boise can't beat an Ohio State, Alabama, Texas, or Florida. This will result in folks being upset with Boise making it into the BCS championship game, and could force the decision-makers to open up the BCS to be a 4-team playoff or something to that effect. While I'm glad we are guaranteed to have a 1-2 matchup, I think the flaw with this sytem is that you could have three undefeated teams with one on the outside looking in, or zero undefeated teams and several one-loss teams with only two of them playing for the national title. I think if you had a system which allowed for 4 teams or more in a small playoff it would take care of all those problems.

Is ATT Uverse Good?

Overall experience after one full day of checking it out: 10 out of 10!

Why did we make the switch from Directv?

I've been a loyal Directv customer for 9 years, but finally decided to make the switch. The reason for the change was primarily due to a better product. You see, Directv makes their old customers pay "lease upgrade" fees to add an HD receiver, or to have a DVR, or an HD DVR. Back in 2001, none of that stuff existed and it didn't matter. But when TIVO/DVR's came out, we shelled out $250 for a Tivo box. Then when HD came out, we upgraded for another $150. Then HD DVR was a must, and it was another $300. Recently the old TIVO box died and we lost our DVR ability in the bedroom, and I started thinking the "whole house DVR" is where we need to go. The problem is that Directv is just now rolling out that product, and they want another $250 lease upgrade fee for me to do that. However, they are giving those receivers away for new customers, and it just pisses me off. Their business model is flawed. They will shell out hundreds and hundreds in incentives to gain a new customer, but won't do jack to keep their loyal customers. For example, I called and said I was thinking of switching to Uverse and I want the whole home DVR, and they said they would give it to me for $200 instead of $250. Not good enough!

In addition, we have HD TV's in the kitchen/sunroom and in our bedroom, but the Directv receivers were not HD. In order to upgrade both of those receivers they wanted another $50 each plus shipping, etc. Again, a new customer would have received those boxes for free.

At the end of the day, Uverse has given me whole house DVR and HD on all three TV's. That is a permanent upgrade I wanted.

Programming: I really wanted ONDEMAND, and Directv's ondemand is a joke. It takes like an hour to download a program, where Uverse is instantly and the library is bigger.

Cost: Not only was all the equipment free, but they are giving me $40 off per month for the first six months ($240 value) plus a $100 prepaid visa card, plus free HBO and Scinamax (I mean Cinemax)for three months ($60 value) totaling $400. If you want an apples to apples comparison vs Directv you have to include all the one-time upgrade fees for another $300 and I come ahead by $700 over the next several months.

After that, the fees are the same on a monthly basis.

Quality: I am very pleased with the Uverse HD quality and ease of use with the DVR, Whole House DVR, and ONDEMAND. It only took me a few minutes to get used to it.

Instalation: As always with ATT, it was horrible. Ordering was confusing as hell because I already had Uverse Internet services. I guess the system they use gets very "confused" when you have an existing line of service and then add another. So I actually order the tv service a month ago and got so frustrated that I cancelled my order. Then after a few weeks thinking about all of the above, I put another order in, and spent about an hour talking to several different reps on the phone trying to straighten it all out. Until the guy actually showed up earlier today, I was unsure if my order was actually in the system. When the installation guy showed up today, he was great - I give him a 10 out of 10. He was only here for 45 minutes and had everything up and running without any snags.

All considered, I give Uverse a strong endorsement. Now, I'm just dreading the call to Directv to cancel my service. I know they are going to try and resell me, but I won't let that happen. And, since I am leasing their receivers, they are going to make me mail them back to them, which is annoying.

Michigan Football Practice

Today I had the benefit of going behind the scenes and watching Michigan football practice! This was exclusive since practice is closed to just about everyone including the media. I was invited to attend by a former player who is close to the program. He also lead a tour of Schembechler Hall, which was very impressive. Overall it was a great experience!

I don't want to share insights about the team in case there are Uconn spies reading my blog. But I will say this: the quarterback situation should be interesting...

My Favorite New Show....

Sons of Anarchy

There have been two seasons, and I am currently watching the second season which is on FX reruns right now. This guy is my favorite character, Jax. It is about a motorcycle "club" who is dealing arms with the blacks, the browns, the arians, and the ira. Lots of action and a great storyline. I strongly recommend it for anyone who likes shows like The Sopranos. But in this show, unlike Sopranos, there is actually a lot of action.

Original Cell Phone Plan

When I was a sophomore at The University of Michigan in 1998-1999, cell phones were finally becoming affordable and people were replacing their land-lines. As a poor student, it was a tough choice because the plans were kind of tricky. I think I ended up with a 500 peak minute plan for $50/mo with free nights and weekends and first incoming minute free with Nextel and unlimited direct connect. No internet, no texting.

The funny part about this story is that a buddy of mine, to protect his name, we will call him "Simonizer." He decided to go with Sprint, who had a special "student" minutes plan. This plan consisted of 60 anytime minutes, unlimited nights and weekends, and first incoming minute free for a fee of $29 or $39/mo ( can't remember exactly how much). 60 anytime minutes is not a whole lot - and any additional anytime minute you use costs a fortune. The funny thing was we would call him and try to use up all his anytime minutes by calling him for no reason. Eventually Simonizer figured it out and when we would call him, he would say " this better be quick" and then hang-up on you at the 59 second mark.

Ridiculous.

Now we can get unlimited phone, internet, and text for $69.99 per phone. Not a bad value!