We recently went to dinner with our good friends Terry & Paula, who are in the process of buying a house in San Clemente since they plan to relocate out this way, I think more or less permanently. They are a few years older than we are, but are very young-spirited and in apparently fine shape. We are very pleased that they are heading this way since we very much enjoy their company and they…
I don’t know whether its the world we live in these days or the specific circumstances we find ourselves in on our hilltop and in our semi-retired states, but both Kim and I find ourselves increasingly at philosophical odds with people we want to maintain relationships with. This is happening at the personal level (both friends and family to varying degrees) and at the institutional level with the organizations we have been trying to either…
My dear friend Frank is the guy who mentored me in the handling of private equity investment. He was a venture capitalist long before it was even known how cool it was to be a venture capitalist. Frank is a Marshall Scholar who attended the London School of Economics just when America was entering the 1960s. He did a stint in the Army like any good red-blooded American male did in those days, but luckily…
Time is a big deal because it’s the one truly non-renewable resource – the only thing you can never get back or make more of. It’s finite and uncertain. You don’t know how much you have. Could be 80 years, could be 80 days. This uncertainty creates urgency and forces us to make choices about what matters most. Every “yes” to one thing is automatically a “no” to something else. Some say that it’s the…
Over the years, in many houses that I’ve owned, I furnished and decorated them in almost as many different ways as one could. 50 years ago my first house, purchased when I was only 23 years old, was decorated with discount furniture, American style. That was by necessity since the purchase of that home tapped out all of my savings and all of my borrowing power on my credit cards. By the time I purchased…
Back in 1990 when I was moving to Toronto by myself, I went out and bought some furniture for this wonderful two-bedroom, two-bath apartment I had rented to live in during my tenure as CEO of BT Bank of Canada. Given that my tour in Toronto had been likened in the industry as my being sent to a Russian Gulag, it was not so Gulag-like on the ground, but actually rather nice surroundings. The one…
For almost the first time in a year, Kim and I watched MSNBC last night. It was strange to see all the familiar faces that have been absent from our consciousness for the past year. Yesterday was a watershed day on this hilltop. At about 2:30pm, Kim’s brother, Jeff, lost his hard-fought battle and succumbed to the ages of eternity. His twelve-day hospital rollercoaster ride going from ER to ICU to Stroke Ward and back…
My daughter Carolyn ran her 10th NYC Marathon yesterday. She started before she had her two daughters and other than the obvious hiatuses while pregnant, she has been doing this annually for fifteen years. She started during college and hasn’t stopped since. In fact, her goal, she tells me, is to complete 15 NYC Marathons so that she can join that elite New York Roadrunners group who get automatic annual entrance exemptions without either having…
Tomorrow is the first Sunday of November and we are due to “Fall Back” an hour on the clocks. For some, this release from daylight savings time means an hour more of sleep on a crisp Sunday morning. When I was in college, my friend Robbie, who was desperate to do well enough in his grades to get into medical school, was so focused on time management that he would “bank” his hour and “use”…
We’ve been going through a lot lately, as people often do from time to time. Into every life, as they say, some rain must fall. No one can fully anticipate the rain and we all live with unpredictable weather in life, but the progression of life keeps marching forward with both sunny and rainy days. I feel that the trick is to treat every day with wonder and surprise and yet not be surprised by…