Getting Busy The whole idea of retirement is supposed to be to get less busy and to relax, but that seems rarely to be the case. I have written an entire published academic book on pensions and yet despite being a financial professional, I prefer not to delve too deeply into the financial aspects of retirement. That is more about wanting to stay away from the micro considerations than the macro issues. I just figure…
Mapping the Trip The future is coming up on us fast. I am feeling it in several important ways. The first place this is happening is with our travel plans. Next week we will be heading off to Spain to suit up for a motorcycle ride through the Pyrenees and along the northern coast of Spain along the popularly significant Camino de Santiago. That ride will start in Barcelona, go up into Andorra, wind its…
Labor Day Labors We all carry our own burdens, whether we want to or not. One of mine appears to be that I think too much. Please don’t shut down and assume that I am being arrogant and suggesting that I am smarter than other people, because I am not. I know my IQ and have for many years and I know I have a modicum of intelligence, but that many of you out there…
Moonshot In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I am quite fixated when it comes to moon themes around this hilltop. It all springs from my favorite movie, Moonstruck, which suited me as a name for this house those ten plus years ago when we bought it. I have never looked back since and the moon hits just keep on coming. I looked up the word moon in reference to the 1,437 stories I…
Back to the Garden It’s August and I see that it will be up into the mid-80s by noon. While I would prefer it five degrees cooler, the weather here on the hilltop is actually pretty pleasant and working outside in the garden is tolerable so long as you are judicious in your activity in the midday sun. Mad dogs and Englishmen may not care about the midday sun, but I would rather not risk…
Surrendering to CostCo Everyone thinks that CostCo started in Kirkland, Washington, just outside of Seattle back in 1983, just when Howard Schultz was getting his hands on this little coffeehouse startup called Starbucks and starting to rev it up into a global retailing juggernaut. But by virtue of its merger with another big-box retailer named Price Club, CostCo can claim to have started back in 1976 right here in good old San Diego. The behemoth…
School Daze It’s early August and despite my every effort to the contrary, I cannot make myself into Rod Stewart. My Freshman Fall at Cornell was heavily dominated by Rod’s rendition of Maggie May, which came out in July, 1971 on his Reason to Believe album. You may recall that for him it was “late September and I really should be back at school…” Well, for me at age 68, it is a case that…
The Presumption of Aging I have never been one to have a fear of getting older. In fact, whenever I am asked my age, I always state a number one year beyond my present age. Right now I am 68 and when asked, I say I am 69. This might be due to the fact that I always had a bit of a baby face and liked to think of myself as older, and it…
Losing My Grip I am increasingly feeling like an observer of the world as it rushes past rather than an active participant. Some of that feeling is inevitable as I get further and further out of the mainstream. I am still actively trying to remain relevant and I do that by keeping up on the news and engaging friends in lively debate when the topics are not too controversial or the people involved are not…
Thursdays Suck I suspect that many people, probably the same ones who invented Thank God It’s Friday (TGIF), have felt that Mondays are the day of the week that sucks the most. Needless to say, this likely has mostly to do with the need to go back to work or school come Monday, and the fact that that represents an obligation rather than a desire. There are plenty of songs and accolades to Saturday and…