Indian Autumn When I think of Indian Summer I think of the days in mid-October when the weather goes all the way up to the 60’s or 70’s for a few days and we all remember the warmth of summer to carry us through the impending long dreary days of winter that lay before us. Those rare sunny days have a combination of falling leaves and warmth that certainly confuse the local flora and make…
On A Mission Our friends Gary and Oswaldo have finally moved back from Staten Island to West Hollywood. I tried being a goof and telling them that there really was little difference between the two places and that they would hardly notice the move. That didn’t work even for a quick laugh. I’m not sure what it is about Staten Island that brings out this “run away, run away “ reaction from people, but it…
Time Management I must admit I am more and more in a quandary about my personal time management. Am I a working guy or am I a retired guy or am I something in between? Do I really have to define myself so specifically and does anyone really care how I do that for whatever purpose? I am bothering to write about this because I suspect that while many people had cause to worry about…
Hitting The Deck I have traumatized my left knee on several occasions. The first time was in 1990 when I was in Marbella with a large group of derivatives professionals at a conference. One of the activities involved four of us in a Japanese version of an open-topped Jeep running the traps of a scavenger hunt through the hills of Andalusia. I was one of the few in the group of 200 who spoke enough…
3:10 To Yuma This title is written with my brother-in-law Woo in mind. He is a retired helicopter cavalry pilot with the U.S. Navy and along with the smell of napalm in the morning, there is nothing he likes better than a good western. I said that mostly for effect since he was mostly a rescue pilot who served a bit in Vietnam and more in Iran and Antarctica. Nonetheless, I am presuming that he…
The Attraction Game Today I got an unexpected call from my friend Travis. Travis is a wonderful guy I met about seven years ago. He is a guy who always has a bright smile and easy laugh. He is a guy who I would always choose to have a meal with because he is simply an interesting guy. He lives in Croton-on-Hudson with his Kiwi wife Fiona and his two boys, Connor and Jack. They…
The Swordfish In The Trunk Back in 2004, I moved from the Gramercy area of New York City to The South Street Seaport. I bought a lovely penthouse apartment on Beekman Street with a large 1,700 foot terrace. It had the distinction of actually being within the Seaport blocks and was thus part of the Seaport. In 2004 the Fulton Fish Market was still an active part of the South Street Seaport even though the…
Knowing The Score For years I was looking for a Robert DeNiro movie that had caught my fancy the one time I saw it years ago. It was a movie where he played a seasoned safe-cracker of global renown who pulls off heists in the U.S. and elsewhere and then works his way back to his real life home in Montreal. There he lives in an Art Deco designed apartment and owns a classy, but…
Moving On I’m ready. I always liked that old adage, “I was born ready.” We have had a long twenty years as a nation. We are in our third major national crisis by my reckoning. I guess that since I have no military background and don’t have kids or relatives who have served in the various wars in the Middle East (Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan), I tend to think of the national crises as being the…
Wakey-Wakey One of my favorite movies is The World’s Fastest Indian, starring Anthony Hopkins. The obvious reason for my affection is that the subject is motorcycle speed racing on the Bonneville Salt Flats of Western Utah. Any movie about motorcycling is of interest to me, but this one holds a particularly special place in my heart. It is about an old New Zealand codger named Burt Monro from Invercargill on the South Island, who spends…