Archive for 2010

There’s quite a bit of talk about expanding the NFL season from 16 games to 18 games per team. the primary driver for the expansion talk seems to be that the league currently has a pre-season that consists of four games played overwhelmingly scrubs that aren’t going to play much or at all during the [...]

That’s the New England Patriots record since the last time the team won the Lombardi Trophy in 2004. The Brandon Spikes sex tape has turned the Bill Belichick era, or at least what remains of it (which probably isn’t much) into a farce. Belichick bet the team’s fortune on building a ferocious defensive line to [...]

Photo shot on Thursday last week from the Hyatt Harborside Hotel at Logan Airport.

The table below shows the change (’000) in total payroll employment, government payroll employment and private sector payroll employment by state in July 2010. The data used in the table was released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on August 20,2010 and is the most recent available.

State
Total
Government
Private

Alabama
2.1
-3.7
5.8

Alaska
1.1
-0.8
1.9

Arizona
5.3
-0.2
5.5

Arkansas
3.6
-3.5
7.1

California
-9.4
-23.1
13.7

Colorado
1.9
-0.8
2.7

Connecticut
-1.3
-2.9
1.6

Delaware
1.1
-0.8
1.9

District of Columbia
17.8
8.9
8.9

Florida
5.7
-3.4
9.1

Georgia
5.6
-8.1
13.7

Hawaii
5.1
2.5
2.6

Idaho
0.8
-0.9
1.7

Illinois
-20.2
-5.2
-15

Indiana
8.7
-4.3
13

Iowa
1.7
-1.3
3

Kansas
4.9
1.8
3.1

Kentucky
-8
-4.8
-3.2

Louisiana
3.5
-5.9
9.4

Maine
5.5
0.6
4.9

Maryland
0.5
-2.9
3.4

Massachusetts
13.2
-6
19.2

Michigan
27.8
5.4
22.4

Minnesota
9.8
-9.1
18.9

Mississippi
-4.9
-4.4
-0.5

Missouri
2.7
-0.9
3.6

Montana
1
-3.5
4.5

Nebraska
1.6
0.7
0.9

Nevada
-0.1
1
-1.1

New Hampshire
-4.9
-2.9
-2

New Jersey
-21.2
-18.1
-3.1

New Mexico
2.2
-4
6.2

New York
10.5
-18.5
29

North Carolina
-29.8
-27.3
-2.5

North Dakota
1.6
0.7
0.9

Ohio
1.8
-8.7
10.5

Oklahoma
7
1.9
5.1

Oregon
-3
-5.2
2.2

Pennsylvania
-7
-10.4
3.4

Rhode [...]

Here’s a picture I snapped at the Lowe’s store in Westborough in Massachusetts a couple of days ago:

As you can see the New England Patriots-branded 5-gallon bucket is $6.98 while the store-brand 5-gallon bucket is $2.54.
That’s quite a difference in price for two fairly simple products sold next to each other. In the 4 P [...]

While driving eastbound on the Mass Turnpike on Saturday August 21 we were passed by a Natick firetruck in the right lane. It turned out to be racing towards a car on fire in the westbound lane, more or less halfway between the Weston barracks and the Framingham exit. When we passed the scene, maybe [...]

The combined population of California, Texas, New York and Florida is about 100 million, or one-third of the population of the United States, so the unemployment rate in those states have a substantial impact on the national unemployment rate (currently 9.5%).
The table below shows the unemployment rate for those four states over the past [...]

The tables below show unemployment rates for Massachusetts, Minnesota, Virginia and Washington 2006 - 2010, from the height of the real estate bubble through the Panic of 2008, the subsequent Great Recession and slow recovery. Since I have a bit of a Mass-centric view on the Republic I have set the tables as head to [...]

My wife stayed at The Hilton New York while visiting New York City recently. Her late evening check-in, the availability of rooms and the kindness of front-desk worker all aligned in such a happy way that she was upgraded to a pretty spectacular spacious suite with a grand view of Central Park. Here are some [...]

It was announced today that 2,556 solar power panels will help supply Patriot Place - the retail and restaurant complex adjacent to New England Patriots home field Gillette Stadium - with electricity. Here’s a picture I took yesterday of some of the panels: