Roenblog:

Bond. Lame Bond.

Chrysler’s bondholders are whining about Obama’s deal. Don’t listen to them.

Below are links that a friend sent me.  While I’m not familiar with either  “Zero Hedge” or  “FineMrespice” the tale told here is amazing.  The story is about the head of White & Case’s restructuring group alleging that the Obama administration directly threatened an investor (Read Perella Weinberg?) to force them to drop their fight in the Chrysler bankruptcy.  
Alleged quote from our “Car Czar” to Perella Weinberg

Who the fuck do you think you’re dealing with? We’ll have the IRS audit your fund. Every one of your employees. Your investors. Then we will have the Securities and Exchange Commission rip through your books looking for anything and everything.

Faced with these threats the investor backed down taking a settlement much less appealing that what could have possibly been attained through bankruptcy.  A government official is dictating terms of how to operate private companies.  They are forcing investors to make decisions that do not match with their fiduciary duties to investors.    I encourage all of you to please read the following links and make your own decisions on the validity of the claims.  

• http://www.finemrespice.com/node/56
• http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/05/white-house-threatened-to-destroy.html
• http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/05/white-house-claims-head-of-white-case.html
• http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/05/bankruptcy-atto.html

Before the snow and ice hit last week, the Ryan family took a field trip to Woolaroc. Woolaroc was established in 1925 as the ranch retreat of oilman Frank Phillips. The ranch is now a 3,700 acre wildlife preserve and museum.

While we were having fun in Chicago last week, our parents were digging out of a spring storm (sorry family, we really do feel bad). Here are some pictures from the Roenfarm last week as the snow piled up. Hope it’s melted by now!

We caught the train to Chicago Friday for my second ever hockey game (first professional hockey game). The Chicago Blackhawks won against the New Jersey Devils, and quality fans from both sides packed the United Center. It was a good game, although Chris and I don’t really understand the rules of hockey that well.

Here’s what makes it a good game for us:
1) Stadium food like fries, burgers, hot dogs, nachos, etc.
2) Fist fights between hockey players, including one that lasted for five minutes and stretched the length of the ice with all three referees just watching
3) A referee got hit in the head with a hockey puck and had to leave the game
4) Dan Aykroyd opened the game, which was full of Blues Brothers references
5) Fist fights in the stands between white trash Blackhawks fans and Devils fans.

We stayed at the Hotel Burnham, which we would highly recommend. Also, before the game, we met up with some of Chris’ friends from the Chicago Board of Trade and had after-work drinks at a bar filled with traders. They were all fun Irish guys, so we fit right in.

Virgin Gorda 2009 from Chris Roenbaugh on Vimeo.

We had a fabulous vacation in Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands. It was a needed respite from the winter weather in Milwaukee.

Day 1: Travel Day. We woke up early and drove to Chicago O’Hare. Jen had to get a new passport recently, and the kindly airport security guard informed her that she had forgotten to sign the new passport. Whoops! Probably should have been grounded for that, but a disaster avoided.

We flew to San Juan, Puerto Rico, and then hopped a smaller plane to Tortola. From Tortola, we took a 20-minute boat ride on the Rosewood Little Dix Bay catamaran. We were lumped in with big group from a tech-company that were on the same flight as us. After a beer on the beach and a rum punch on the boat over, Jenny had chatted with nearly all the tech company people. Apparently, they all thought she was with their company.

We spent the evening eating pizza at the hotel bar and watching the waves come in. Instant relaxation.

Day 2: We got up early (even though the time change was only one hour earlier) and hiked one of the trails leading off our resort to Savannah Bay. It was a steeper trail than we had imagined and cool weather when we started our hike. About half way up, we realized that we had forgotten to bring any water. Thankfully, we arrived at the beach on the other side in time to cool down in the waves. There was no one else on the beach, giving us the feeling of being on a deserted island.

We spent the rest of the day lounging at our resort’s beach, then we cleaned up for dinner in Spanish Town. We walked into town and had drinks at The Bath & Turtle overlooking the harbor. Then, we headed to dinner at Chez Bamboo. Chris ordered his first Antigua lobster of the trip there, which was a sight that made other diners’ heads turn — a two-pound (or three?) lobster served in the shell with a mound of mashed potatoes in one end.

Before our trip, we had debated on renting a car to drive around the island ourselves. There is really no need for this. The whole island only has about eight miles of road, and the local driving is scary enough that you’d rather take a taxi. British rules of the road dictate driving on the “wrong” side of the road, but all the cars are American, so the driver ends up being on the far side.