Circling Around I recently took a motorcycle ride to to Mount Palomar with a friend in the neighborhood, Brian. Brian is 48 years old and has five kids that range from eighteen down to three. You don’t run into a lot of families with five kid anymore, but Brian seems blasé about that number of dependents, which is good because as I say to my kids all the time, “don’t worry, it’ll all be over…
Gearing Up This morning it is not yet time for me to emerge from my office cave into the light of day. I have spent five hours talking to an old lawyer friend getting some pointers about the Investment Advisors Act (the 40-Act, as it is called in the biz) as it pertains to an expert witness case that I am up to my eyeballs in and then putting it down in writing. Only a…
Personal Space It’s Wednesday evening and I am at University of San Diego waiting for my class in Advanced Corporate Finance to begin in about 90 minutes. As those who know me understand, I rarely get anywhere late and I almost always err on being 15-30 minutes early. While that is not necessarily a good thing for hostesses throwing a party and putting finishing touches in place, mostly its a good thing that means I…
Head Game I spent about five hours yesterday with my brother-in-law Jeff at his house. Jeff and I met seventeen years ago in 2005, the year I met my magnificent Kim. Since my relationship with Jeff only exists because of Kim (I’m not sure how, in a country of just under 300 million people at the time, I would have otherwise run into Jeff), let me digress for a moment and tell you how I…
Fixing the World I often say to people that I teach because I get so much out of it. That sounds like a lot of Hoo Haw to most people, even to me, but it may also be true. One of the things that I clearly experience from teaching is the integration of that process with y expert witness activity. One truly does feed off the other. I am a more interesting and valuable expert…
Influencer Hell A few years ago I read about a simple music teacher in South Korea that was eking out a living doing one-off music lessons. Then someone gave him the suggestion that he take his craft online and start leveraging himself by offering his lessons over the internet. The idea was initially about sourcing more clients through digital marketing, but also to create a network effect by allowing more students to access his supposedly…
That’ll Do, Pig My old college fraternity pal, Doug, stayed with us with his wife, Liz, for the past few days. They came for a western trip to spend time in Phoenix, Sedona and San Diego. We had been inviting them to come out and stay with us for several years and they finally had the time on their dance cards to come out and make that happen. They timed it to join us for…
Mind the Gap Those of you who have spent time in London and ridden the Underground (subway) there, you are familiar with some of the Britishisms that one encounters. If you are on the street, you are familiar with the “Look Right” or “Look Left” designations on the curbs that are intended to remind pedestrians that road traffic travels in the opposite direction than what is familiar to most people who live in right-hand drive…
Bell Ringing We are only two weeks away from starting the official holiday season. I know I have discussed how much the season gets pushed forward on us by commercial interests and that’s all fine since we can each choose to ignore it if it offends us. But during Thanksgiving week, there is no avoiding the advent of Advent. We have our favorite holiday movies, which do not count the countless Hallmark movies that Kim…
From the Depths I came back to my hilltop last week with a cold. It wasn’t COVID, it was a cold. I tested for COVID on Tuesday morning and again (COVID can be a tricky bastard) yesterday…Monday…since we had guests coming and I felt I owed it to them to be sure of my infectiousness. I had also heard from friend Gary in West Hollywood that what he had thought was a cold upon returning…