Tweener Week

* I want to put a Red Cross donation link on the page, but haven't found an easy way to do it yet. Red Cross until then... The numbers coming out from the tsunamis are staggering. Help if you can.

* I understand why many companies make their employees take the week between Christmas and New Year's off. Folks seem to be marking time between holidays. Everyone seems in a good mood.

* Do you take down Christmas decorations the day after, or wait until after New Year's?

* Later in the week, I'll try and summarize various stock market predictions for 2005. Including my own! Have you noticed that trying to find a negative forecast is very difficult to do? Maybe folks are just in a positive and optimistic mood, or hoping for better days ahead. With all the predictions of 8-12% gains, it's rare to find someone predicting a 10% drop.

* Nick Saban takes over the Miami Dolphins! Not a bad situation. Their defense is pretty strong. They have good wide receivers and a great tight end. I think the big black hole is their offensive line. I don't know how good AJ Feely is, but he seems capable and if a big o-line can lay down some pass blocking, maybe he puts up good numbers with those wideouts. Of course, their running back situation is a problem, too. But a good offensive line helps that. (Look at Denver!)

* Santa Claus is on Wall Street today! Have you noticed the number of folks predicting a mild winter, and the drop in oil prices? How accurate are the weather guys? I'm not going to predict a 70-degrees and balmy January for the Northeast - how about you? I think there is increasing energy demand from both the US and China, and OPEC recently announced production cuts. I don't think there is that much slack in the supply-demand balance. We'll see!

* I ran into The Paycheck Guy today while getting coffee. He had the newspaper out and was going over last night's NBA boxscores. He was telling me that he likes the way Detroit's Tayshaun Prince played. It's close to the end of the month, so I'll see him again in a few days.