On Sunday, Kim and I went to go see The Devil Wears Prada 2. It has been 20 years since the original The Devil Wears Prada was aired and we have both always loved the movie and all its stars. The sequel just opened May 1st, several days ago, so this is hot off the presses. The plot follows Miranda Priestly (editor of Runway magazine) and her struggle against Emily Charlton, her former assistant, now…
Back in the day (I mean the 1990’s), I ran the Global Private Banking business of Bankers Trust Company. We were not the largest private banking business in the world, but we were a significant first tier player. What that meant was that I owned two tuxedos and they barely got a rest from all the black tie events I had to attend. One of our big initiatives was something we called Wealth With Responsibility,…
The novel by E.L. James, 50 Shades of Grey is a 2011 erotic romance novel that follows Anastasia Steele, a college student, and Christian Grey, a wealthy young businessman, as they enter into a complicated relationship involving a contract he proposes to her. That contract is what is called a BDSM contract standing for Bondage & Discipline, Dominance & Submission and Sadism & Masochism. The core principles of a modern BDSM community operates on the…
In ancient times there was a practice of assisted stretching that dated back thousands of years, rooted in spiritual rituals and ancient healing systems. Partner-assisted stretches were part of yogic tradition in ancient India, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) that used passive stretching in Tuina massage, and Thai monks, who developed Nuad Thai (Thai Yoga Massage) combining guided stretches and acupressure. Ancient cultures had remarkably sophisticated reasons for assisted stretching. The motivations fell into a few…
A friend of mine has asked me to shadow him on a private investment and manage it for his descendants should his health prevent him from doing so himself. Getting back into the process of venture capital is not really something I am all that keen on, but I’ve done it enough and am proficient enough that I’m happy to help out a friend. I made my living in finance and investments for almost 50…
Last night I stumbled on a little movie I hadn’t seen before called Brad’s Status. Brad’s Status is a 2017 film written and directed by Mike White, starring Ben Stiller. The premise is that Brad (Stiller) is a modestly successful nonprofit director taking his son to college visits (Harvard, Tufts) from his “ordinary” home in Sacramento, and becoming consumed by envy and self-doubt as he measures his life against four college friends who all seem…
A classic! The 2000 Coen Brothers film about channeling the general sentiment of exasperation. The movie is about a Depression-era Odyssey retelling that’s set in Mississippi, with George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson as escaped convicts on a rambling road trip. The Homeric parallels are playful but genuine with the Cyclops, the Sirens, and Tiresias (the blind prophet) all making appearances in transformed form. And the soundtrack, is arguably as important as the…
Back in 1961, when my mother brought my sisters and I up to Madison, Wisconsin from Turialba, Costa Rica, I started at the local elementary school into the prescribed second grade as the back-to-school season began. Within two weeks I had frustrated my teacher to the point where my mother was called in for a conference to discuss my schooling. It seemed that my one year of one-room schoolhouse education on the tropical grounds of…
Life has a way of happening in waves and right now we are in a travel planning wave. Note that I said travel planning, not travel. We are actually having a pretty light travel year due to modest planning and unforeseen changes which have caused us to cancel on two trips. That has left us with one foreign trip in September, one foreign trip in early 2027 and then a whole bunch of conversations which…
The thing about living out here in San Diego is that the weather is, simply perfect. I just asked Claude where the best place to live in the United States is in terms of comfort. Claude went through the preference Q&A needed to answer that sort of question, asking me about what sort of temperature I preferred (mild 60’s-70’s rather than warm 70’s-80’s) and what I wanted to avoid the most (humidity rather than cold/snow)…