Mistletoe We are gearing up for the holidays around here this week because we are scheduled to head out to NYC to see the kids for a few days. The last time we saw them was September when we were supposed to be heading to Spain and Portugal, but cancelled the motorcycle trip since some in our group were not so comfortable with the feinting surge in the Delta variant. So, we spent a week…
Ragamuffin A ragamuffin usually refers to a dirty and unkempt child, a waif, an urchin or a guttersnipe. It comes from a combination of old English, referencing the rags that adorn such a child and perhaps embellished by the Dutch from the word muffe, which means mittens. Those children with ragged mittens are ragamuffins. For some reason in Jamaican slang, a ragamuffin is a street tough, so less pitiful and more tomcat mongrel. Our little…
Traveling to Enlightenment We went to see the new Ridley Scott movie The Last Duel last night at the local Angelika Film Center. Once again, it was very lightly attended with a mere 8-10 people in the well-appointed theater. The film is set in 1386 or so and chronicles what was the end stages of the Middle Ages in Europe. The movie makes reference to the economic hardship to noblemen and their estates by virtue…
Calico Cats Quandry I currently subscribe to global news feeds including NYT, WAPO, WSJ and FT, but also read New Yorker, Esquire, Vanity Fair and NatGeo. Oh, very relevantly, I also read the monthly AARP Bulletin. When Apple News feeds me something I can’t read without subscribing, I generally pass and just absorb the headline. I also use Prime, Netflix, AppleTV, HBO Max and Hulu for subscription videos. I will ignore the social media subscriptions…
Easy Come, Easy Go I put in a bunch of expert witness work in August and September. In fact, I put in a total of 180 hours. In addition to that, I was preparing for and launching my course in Advanced Corporate Finance. I suppose that was another 40 hours of work. In the tradition of the 40-hour work week, those nine weeks would produce a time card of 360 hours. My math tells me…
Chillin’ With the Chillen’ Thomas and Jenna have been here for three days and have one day to go. From here they go to Colorado where they will do some hiking and getting to know Denver. Both Thomas and Jenna work hard and really wanted to use their time to relax. We offered them a whole array of things to do ranging from the famous San Diego Zoo to the San Juan Capistrano Mission, but…
In the Land of the Fairies Do you remember the movie The Full Monty? Even though its 24-years old, it is still a favorite. In it was Tom Wilkinson, one of the great supporting actors with 131 acting credits to his name on IMDB, including The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Valkyrie, Michael Clayton (Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor), Batman Begins, The Patriot, In The Bedroom (Oscar nomination for Best Actor), and the series John…
Chamber of Commerce Weather In December 2011, Kim, youngest son Thomas and I took a road trip. We flew into San Francisco, rented a car and began a West Coast odyssey to find a new home for the future. I had sold my Park City home in 2007 during the worst moments of the Bear Stearns hedge fund debacle. That was not a home that I felt particularly attached to. I had bought the monster…
Growing Up COVID When I was growing up I was influenced most by two wars. First there was WWII with it’s amazing sea-based battles. The visual images of dive bombers and Kamikazes buzzing like flies around battleships and aircraft carriers were vivid in my minds eye to the point of being the subject of many of my childhood drawing efforts. As for the ground battles in Europe, the landings at Anzio and Normandy were only…
The Don Marlon Brando had a film career that put him at the top of the male lead actor charts for fully fifty years. It is hard to pick a best among Brando’s many films. He started in the 50’s with such greats as A Streetcar Named Desire, Viva Zapata, The Wild One, On the Waterfront and Guys and Dolls. These were all iconic roles and iconic films. In the 60’s he expanded his repertoire…