The primary reason why Kim and I come to New York City every December is to see and gather with our family. Our family is somewhat less New York City focused at this point with oldest son Roger and his wife Valene living in Delaware and youngest son Tom and his wife Jenna living in Denver. Nonetheless daughter Carolyn and her husband, John, and our two granddaughters Charlotte and Evelyn, remain firmly rooted on the…
We’ve all heard about the Aboriginal tradition of young people going through a rite of passage when they come of age and go forth to explore the broader world around them but more distant than what they have known in their upbringing. Its’s a time of reflection of the soul, a return to one’s roots and family ancestry, a joyous revisiting of the wonders of the natural world. For someone like me that has spent…
I know I wrote about the healthcare system in America recently, so please don’t read too much into the fact that today I’m writing about medicine. It is purely coincidental…I think. It just so happens that meds are on my mind for all sorts of reasons. I will start with the most personal of those. I am expecting the delivery of two prescriptions today and I am in short enough supply of those two so…
We will get picked up tomorrow at 4:30am and spend the next eleven hours or so doing our best to go from our little hilltop here in San Diego to the paved and gloriously lighted streets of midtown Manhattan. This trip has become a holiday ritual for the past five years and the seasonal pre-Christmas gathering has been a family tradition now for seventeen years (since I sold the last of my Park City ski…
Kim tells me that today is Buddy’s one year “Gotcha” anniversary. That means we got Buddy a year ago today. The woman that groomed our sweet Betty girl called Kim while we were in NYC last year and told her that one of her other clients had a friend who was trying to rehome a little brown toy poodle and would we be interested. The first stop we made once we were home was to…
It was the Star that led the way. In the vast expanse of the night sky, where countless stars twinkled like diamonds scattered across dark velvet, one star shone with exceptional brilliance. This was no ordinary star – it was a divine beacon, placed in the heavens for a singular purpose. Far to the east, in lands of ancient wisdom and learning where men and a few token women gather in Congressional chambers to do…
I limit my social media engagement to three sites at this point. I am a viewer of Instagram (I never have posted) and I find it a nice and easy way to follow the whereabouts and doings of my children and nieces/nephews. I started on Instagram specifically because I found that my kids were posting away from me when I was on Facebook and I decided to get sneaky and sign up for Instagram to…
The power of media is a longstanding source of commercial interest among the wealthiest people of the world. I recently saw a documentary by Ken Burns about Benjamin Franklin, the man often referenced as the most globally powerful American of his era and perhaps the most influential Founding Father of what has become the most powerful country in the world. Franklin was indeed an influential figure in early American media, and was so significant in…
The world is filled with dictators, despots and strong men. The world has pretty much always been filled with dictators, despots and strong men. I hate to say it, but I can find no reason not to expect that it will always be so. My entire life has intersected with these strong men, beginning with my earliest years growing up in Venezuela. My mother was a development officer at the Rockefeller Foundation in Venezuela from…
I have been a CEO of eight companies (I actually had business cards that said CEO) during my career and I have run fourteen distinct businesses for which I was the primary decider of strategy and tactics. The term Chief Executive Officer seems like its a week defined role, but saying you are a CEO can range from being the head of a small start-up company with two people and a dog, to being the…