I was interested to see that unemployment took a slight dip in November — from 10.2 to 10.0 percent. Many in the media have jumped on this as a sign of good times ahead for the American economy. Of course, it’s impossible to know if this is a trend that will last, or if it is just a momentary blip, perhaps fueled by widespread government spending programs. In any case, I am certain Barack Obama and the Democrat members of Congress were very happy to get this early Christmas present.

* * *

Last week was an eventful week. The weather was good, which it wasn’t at the beginning of this week. It’s been raining in San Diego, of all places. The events started last Friday when we took Malin Burnham, Mark Waldschmidt, Chuck Nichols, and the Venter ocean sampling crew out on my boat Solutions. We went to Oceanside and had a good time, taking ocean samples both on the way and on the return. Malin told me that if we could get him a copy of the manuscript for the new book, he would check to see if there is interest with his publishers. This is welcome news.

Saturday night we visited Walter Munk’s house and had dinner there with the Freemans and a number of others. Sunday night we went to the Beach and Tennis Club where we had dinner with the Freemans again. They just returned from France and we enjoyed listening to their stories.

– Bob