The Gift that Keeps on Giving I wrote a story almost two years ago about my saga of trying to get Mercedes Benz Escondido to install a trailer hitch on my new GLS 450, as they had promised they could and would when I bought (actually leased) the car. The outcome of that story involved MB Escondido splitting the outrageous $3,600 cost to install what is a $575 factory option. Today is the first time…
Trailer Travails Today I am getting ready for our one-year-postponed 25th Anniversary gathering of my motorcycle club. The plan is that on Friday we will drive with our friends Chris and Ann (and, of course, Betty) to Las Vegas with our motorcycles (actually, both of the bikes are mine since Chris will ride my Kawasaki and I will ride my BMW) in my motorcycle trailer. We will unload the bikes in Las Vegas and then…
One More Go It’s Saturday night and we have nothing on. I drove son Thomas to the airport this morning for his return to NYC after a wonderful week with him here. I’m a little sad to see him go, but I am a big believer in the concept that birds gotta fly and at 26, Thomas is out of the nest and winging his way into his life. In fact, as I look at…
Laborers One should never be too old or too set in one’s ways so as not to be open to learning and improving oneself. When I wrote my story yesterday and mentioned that I would be hiring a pair of Mexican laborers, a term I view as only descriptive and not in any way derogatory. Being half Venezuelan and often being mistaken by marketers as having a Hispanic surname, it would be hard for me…
Mothers Day This morning my sister Kathy and I received a text from my sister Barbara with a picture of my mother’s grave marker. The marker is a bronze image of our mother in her youth, her DOB and DOD spanning 100+ years, and the expression of love, “We will look for you always.” It still, four years since her death, brings a pang to my heart. I feel the need to examine that sentiment…
The Beverly Hillbillies While son Thomas is here this week we want him to have the opportunity to see everyone he can. Therefore, we planned a day up in L.A. even though I am always intimidated to drive up into L.A. traffic. Intimidation isn’t really the right word, but I definitely don’t like L.A. traffic. And L.A. sits like a massive lump in the middle of the state. It extends east/west from the beach at…
Homebody Betty For eleven years we had Cecil and he followed the nature of his Bichon breed and could never be left alone, even for a few hours, since his high anxiety nature would cause him to do strange retaliatory things. For instance, once when he left alone for a few hours, he jumped up onto the kitchen table and peed all over it. That sort of action can only be designed to pass a…
Of Horseshoes and Hand Grenades Woulda, coulda, shoulda. It’s the story of the investment world as told by the non-billionaires among us. I didn’t get involved in venture capital early enough to ask myself what I would have returned on a Microsoft or Apple investment if I had gone in pre-IPO in the 1980’s (Apple IPO was 1980 and Microsoft was 1986). I was focused and busy with my banking career back then and that…
Everything Brakes What causes me to write under this mixed-message title is the fact that on our recent trip up north I noticed that on long down-hill highway stretches, the brakes of the 2019 Mercedes Benz GLS 450 that we drive, started to pulsate. This is not a good feeling with something as critical to vehicle safety as braking. Pulsating brakes seem like a big deal to me and without any particular regard to what…
The Fight of the Century Imagine being on a motorcycle trip through Turkey during a Trump-inspired war (of a sort) between Turkey and neighboring Syria. Now imagine being a very left-leaning liberal who has been struggling for several years to comprehend how America got to such a low-point as to actually elect a dolt like Trump to the highest office in the land, nay, the world. You find yourself amidst a group of close friends…