Each year on this day, I listen to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous speech at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial as inspiration. As a kid, I grew up about 10 miles from the memorial in the early 1970’s, often riding my bike into DC with my friends. I used to love sitting on those steps, admittedly oblivious to the details of momentous event that had taken place there less than a decade earlier.

A “Bad Check” marked “Insufficient Funds”

Here is one of my favorite MLK quotes.

I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.

And pop culture takes a try at the message.

My blog was just hacked in a pretty clever way. Search “matrix miller” and click on the top link for Viagra – it takes you back to my blog.

Per my developer.

I went through the template line by line and I think I found a place where someone inserted some code. It points to code on a remote server that’s not up right now, I don’t know what that could would do when loaded. I suspect that they changed the content of the template at night, when we wouldn’t notice. If you look at that text-only version of the cached Google page, none of your content is on it.

As I understand it (and thats quite a stretch), the source of the cached page is ok – its the title and meta tags in Google’s cache that have been altered.

Order Generic Viagra Online – Online Drug Store, Best Prices Order Generic Viagra Online. Pill Shop, Secure and Anonymous. We ship with EMS, FedEx, UPS, and other. Personal approach!

in the cache while the source says:

Matrix | Interpreting the Real Estate Economy

The google link takes you to my blog even though it displays different titles. We’ve removed the hack and once Google re-indexes in a few days, it’ll go away.

Just imagine how quickly we could fix healthcare, global warming and the Mets pitching rotation if this brainpower was put to productive use.

This year, Talk Like a Pirate Day falls on the same day as the Jewish New Year of Rosh Hashanah. In deference to the latter, it was suggested to me that the phrase “Oy, oy, matey”, might be appropriate.

Here’s the story behind the madness of Talk Like A Pirate Day.

the day is the only holiday to come into being as a result of a sports injury. He has stated that during a racquetball game between Summers and Baur, one of them reacted to the pain with an outburst of “Aaarrr!”, and the idea was born. That game took place on June 6, 1995, but out of respect for the observance of D-Day, they chose Summers’ ex-wife’s birthday, as it would be easy for him to remember.

At first an inside joke between two friends, the holiday gained exposure when John Baur and Mark Summers sent a letter about their invented holiday to the American syndicated humor columnist Dave Barry in 2002. Barry liked the idea and promoted the day. Growing media coverage of the holiday after Barry’s column has ensured that this event is now celebrated internationally, and Baur and Summers now sell books and T-shirts on their website related to the theme. Part of the success for the international spread of the holiday has been attributed to non-restriction of the idea or trademarking, in effect opening the holiday for creativity and “viral” growth.

A matrix of historical posts swabbing the Talk Like a Pirate Day deck:

Talk Like A Pirate Day: September 19, 2008
Talk Like A Pirate Day: September 19, 2007
Talk Like A Pirate Day: September 19, 2006
Talk Like A Pirate Day: September 19, 2005

And here’s the Talk Like A Pirate Day news feed.

This whole viral phenomenon each year is simply insane and makes me say “shiver me timbers, me hartey’s” and remember, when you google today, make sure you use the Google Pirate search page. The original site is Talklikeapirate.com but my friend runs the runner up ranked site on Google called Talklikeapirateday.com.

You can translate everyday language into pirate speak.

Where “Has the housing market found a bottom?” becomes “Arrr, has the housin’ market found a bottom? Aye.”

Arrrgh!

Today is a big day at our commercial appraisal firm, Miller Cicero. My partner John Cicero has shared a few thoughts on the anniversary – after all, he is the smartest guy I know.

Here’s John Cicero’s take on it.

Seven years ago today Miller Cicero was formed, a collaboration between me and Jonathan Miller (before he became famous and went on Mexican TV), his wife Cheryl (who watches over the purse strings) and his sister Dina (the true brains of Miller Samuel!) It’s been a great ride and I couldn’t ask for better partners.

Similarly, I couldn’t ask for a better group of staff appraisers, especially Michael Falsetta, Executive Vice President, who freakishly remembers every sale that ever took place in Brooklyn since the turn of the century (and knows where to get the best pizza and grilled octopus in every borough), and Steve Manheimer, Senior Vice President, who leaves no stone unturned when researching a project and makes more demands on himself than I ever do. I know that I’m biased but I believe that I have the best group in the business.

Its been an interesting time to be appraising property in the New York metro area, though. Over the past seven years we’ve seen property double and triple in value, buyers camping outside the sales offices of new condos to be the first to buy, 21-year olds fresh out of school becoming developers (cute!) and then…just as quickly, complete market paralysis.

OK, enough nostalgia. I need to get back to trying to figure out what anything is worth these days….

From this moment on (well, actually after I finish this post) I’m off for a long-deserved (well thats my opinion) vacation. Be back on August 17th.

It seems like I have been blogging here on Matrix for only 5 minutes (under water).

I got into this thing because I was frustrated at the pressures that appraisers were experiencing in the lending process. A lot as changed on the economic and housing front over the last four years, but not much has improved on the appraisal front. sigh.

Here’s my first post on August 1, 2005.

Still, its been a great experience – I’ve met a lot of great people and learned a lot.

and I’m just getting started…

Wikipedia

Given the uptick in the financial markets this week, the positive sign that many seem to be taking from it, and the fact that it involves endless digits of circular numeric calculations, yesterday was Friday the 13th (there are 4 in 2009), so we should:

Do The Math After all, its 3.14…

National Pi Day: Congress took time from it’s busy bailout schedule designating today as National Pi Day.

Here is, quite appropriately, an attempt at a monetized version. Some even argue that Pi is better than sex, but I suspect that is difficult to calculate. Wikipedia has an amazing presentation on Pi for those who are curious. Here’s the million digit version.

Per Wikipedia
π is defined as the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter
π can be also defined as the ratio of a circle’s area to the area of a square whose side is equal to the radius

In real estate economics (Matrix-wise), a Pi-type formula might be expressed as:

property value = ((consumer confidence + (1-their employment outlook/their employment outlook)) + (personal drive for home ownership x irrational behavior) + ((total distance from schools+ total distance from employment)/(White Castle projected visits/Whole Foods projected visits))/(mortgage rates x cash on hand x affordability ratios x size of down payment)/(mood of bank underwriter – name on stadium factor + amount borrowed from US Treasury))

In other words, its complicated.

Perhaps we can turn to Albert Einstein because its his birthday today and simply use E = mc squared and apply it to housing values to figure this all out.

Ok, back to reality.

Here’s a rehash of something I concocted last year: A chart based on the percent change in cpi-adjusted quarterly median sales price from the prior year quarter using the “surface” charting function in Excel. A poor man’s SSPS.

Quilting never looked so good.

I’ll be on vacation this week, thinking of nothing else but housing market trends, credit contraction, stimulus spending et al.

Ok, not really.

I have to say that Dr. King’s birthday is one of the few holidays that I stop and reflect about the nation and how it is changing. I spend time listening to his August 23, 1963 “I have a Dream speech” each year. Here’s the text.

Although King is best known for his civil rights work, he was a staunch advocate for economic justice. In the months before he was killed, he had been working on the Poor People’s Campaign and calling for an economic bill of rights. When he was assassinated in 1968, he was in Memphis supporting a sanitation workers’ strike.

I remember moving to southern Delaware from Massachusetts when I was 7 in 1967, the first year of integrated busing in the small community where we lived. Delaware is a Mason-Dixon state and segregation was very much alive and well back then. A formidable experience to say the least.

Just try and imagine those same words as he spoke them in 1963 under an entirely different social context.

Here is one of my favorite MLK quotes.

I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.

On New Year’s Eve, we were surfing tv channels and saw the usual fodder of the Dick Clark-Carson Daly-Celebrities excited to be in Times Square-rock bands-yelling revelers-ball dropping-confetti falling expected festivities. My son wanted to watch the Robbie (son of Evel) Knievel jump on Fox so I acquiesced. Not to take anything away from Robbie Knievel but it was a routine, mundane boring type of jump. My expectations were a lot higher and a number of my friends had the same reaction.

Then we switched over to ESPN and saw another “Robbie” make a jump. Robbie Maddison made the most amazing motorcycle jump (actually 2) I have ever seen and, of course the up and down ramps symbolized the housing market pattern of the past several years (sorry I can’t help it). Please watch – it’s worth a look, I promise.

Last year he went the distance (322 feet).

Of course, the moral of the story is along the lines of, even with the sharp decline after the sharp incline, he, of course, lived. Notwithstanding that Robbie has to be insane. In his pre-jump interview, he was hoping young people learn from this by going big.

Trillions of dollars later, the financial system can’t afford to “go big”.

Happy New Year, everyone.