Green Acres When we think of the shift in American demographics from rural to urban, we generally think of the period from 1870 to 1920 even though that has been an inexorable trend over our entire history as a nation. We have gone from being 95% rural in Colonial days to being less than 20% rural in recent history. I’m sure we are all very aware of this trend, but what we may be less…
The Hill We Climb I know what you’re thinking. My constant references to my life on this hilltop and the fact that I spend a lot of my day exercising on my own personal stairclimber going up and down the hills to work on projects and generally do chores. So, it is not hard to surmise that the hill I climb is covered in dirt and rocks with an occasional succulent to step over. But…
Feelin’ Good We have all spent the day watching the Biden/Harris inauguration and I just listened to John Legend sing it best when he said he was “feelin’ good”. We are all feelin’ good today. We feel good because a terrible episode is over and already starting to fade to black. As bad as the four years have been, the longest four years I can recall, the last three months have seemed even longer and…
High Flying Adored Today, meaning this day when this story is being published, is a momentous day in America and I have been searching for a way to memorialize it in my writing in as meaningful a way as I can. It’s Wednesday, January 20th, Inauguration Day. I’m tempted to say that since today (the real today, January 18th) is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, that in two days we will be free at last,…
A Trip Down The Nile A few years ago I got it in my head that on the short list of places I wanted to go was to Egypt. I have fond memories of traveling to Egypt on a school trip in high school (keep in mind that I lived and went to school in Rome, which is only 1,300 miles from Cairo, a quick flight across the Med). Marc Antony was able to woo…
Life in Microcosm My first wife, Mary, had a penchant for collecting miniatures. I always found that somewhat humorous since no one would accuse me of being a miniature anything. But she would always hunt for miniature items either as remembrance for life events or even just everyday life. She would keep her miniatures with little bits of sticky putty in upright and refinished printers drawers that used to hold small lead letters used in…
Getting Paid I have a friend who worked with me for fifteen years twenty years ago. Think about that for a moment, its been longer since we worked together than the time we worked together. He was one of three of us partners of our firm that were always called upon to act as Master of Ceremonies for whatever gathering we had. I guess that was because we each had a degree of presence that…
The Great Divide Every day that goes by, more and more information comes out to clarify the nature of the events that really took place in the Capitol last week, and it isn’t getting any better. In fact, there is a feeling that we are getting the slow-play version of the real story and this onion peeling exercise might well end up giving us a look at a very rotten onion. Now that Impeachment Resolution…
Remember Bitcoin? About six years ago I helped a fellow Cornell Business School alumnus launch a new venture capital fund. It was to be focused on Fintech or financial technology companies, an area that held a great deal of interest to me since the democratization of finance had been a topic of thought by me and those around me during my career for a long time. The penultimate Chairman of Bankers Trust Company, the formative…
Terrorizing Myself These days, my morning protocol is to start by understanding what obligations for video calls or meetings I have in the early morning. That is a normal situation I imagine for many people who live on the West Coast since we are three hours displaced from New York and eight or nine hours offset from Europe. While I have done plenty of business with Asia over the years, my connections do not tend…