Summertime and the Living is Breezy It’s been an unusually nice summer weather pattern here in Ithaca the past fortnight. Some days get up into the 80’s and feel a bit hot in the afternoon, but most days have been in the mid 70s and start and end cool. Yesterday, my big event for the day was to be a barbecue in the early evening with several friends from my University involvement days. The granddaughters…
When Work is Done Does everyone know the joke about the sex survey that ends with the question, “How many people have sex only once a year?” And the little guy in the back is excitedly waving his arms and when asked why that makes him so happy he says, “Because tonight’s the night!” It’s a classic, right up there among the best because its all about wrong-footing the audience and then surprising them. I…
Into Thin Air My hilltop is dominated by boulders. I haven’t really done an accounting of the exact number of boulders, but as I look at various drone photos I have of the property, I estimate that I have about 100 large boulders fairly evenly split between front and back hillside. It’s quite hard to come up with an exact number since one has to make an impromptu judgement as to what size rock constitutes…
A Dental Damn OK, admit it, you just had to start reading this story with a title like that, didn’t you? Don’t worry, this story has nothing to do with the latex product sold by that similar name, though I bet a lot of you are as curious about the device as I am. I have no particular reason to be so curious, but its just one of those things that you hear about along…
Totems My life is now all about one totem after another. We all know what a totem pole is, but I’m not sure many of us have stopped to wonder about the underlying reasons why native people display them. A totem is a cultural symbol that tells people who we are and what we respect. They are most often a natural object or an animal that is believed by someone to have spiritual significance. I…
Adieu ADU There are two subjects that I keep returning to consider like a bee drawn to a flower. The first is getting an RV and using it to travel around the country. I think that one may finally have been put to rest two years ago when we rented a Sprinter van and went up to Ojai for what was supposed to be three days and turned out to be only two. That is…
Tree Surgery I have always been a tree guy as long as I can remember. I have mentioned my favorite tree painting before. I bought it about twenty-five years ago at a Private Banking gathering I attended in Punta del Este. The way to create buzz and cause gatherings to happen in the high net worth banking business is to do the things that people of means like doing and then invite them to attend.…
Dying Broke When I wrote my book Global Pension Crisis in 2013, I laid bare a rather stark reality that the world was ill-prepared to fund the Baby Boom generation other than at the extreme cost to the younger generations. I called it a “species-defining” moment for mankind since it would establish our priorities between feeding our aged (all of whom are inevitably living longer than planned) and impairing the growth and prosperity of our…
Personal Services When I was actively in harness and shoving off for work each day, it seemed to be more than luxury, more a necessity, to use lots of personal services. I peaked in that regard in or around 2000 when I was a senior executive at Deutsche Bank, acting as Chairman and CEO of Deutsche Asset Management USA. I was the senior officer at the 280 Park Avenue location, the historic headquarters of Bankers…
As Old As I Feel It’s Mothers’ Day and it is hard not to remember that I am now at an age when my mother was well into her retirement from the UN and living in Las Vegas. When she was 68, I was 30 and had my own son. That seems like a very long time ago to me and while I’m sure my sister Barb, who lived near her all those years in…