Hitting The Deck I have traumatized my left knee on several occasions. The first time was in 1990 when I was in Marbella with a large group of derivatives professionals at a conference. One of the activities involved four of us in a Japanese version of an open-topped Jeep running the traps of a scavenger hunt through the hills of Andalusia. I was one of the few in the group of 200 who spoke enough…
3:10 To Yuma This title is written with my brother-in-law Woo in mind. He is a retired helicopter cavalry pilot with the U.S. Navy and along with the smell of napalm in the morning, there is nothing he likes better than a good western. I said that mostly for effect since he was mostly a rescue pilot who served a bit in Vietnam and more in Iran and Antarctica. Nonetheless, I am presuming that he…
The Attraction Game Today I got an unexpected call from my friend Travis. Travis is a wonderful guy I met about seven years ago. He is a guy who always has a bright smile and easy laugh. He is a guy who I would always choose to have a meal with because he is simply an interesting guy. He lives in Croton-on-Hudson with his Kiwi wife Fiona and his two boys, Connor and Jack. They…
The Swordfish In The Trunk Back in 2004, I moved from the Gramercy area of New York City to The South Street Seaport. I bought a lovely penthouse apartment on Beekman Street with a large 1,700 foot terrace. It had the distinction of actually being within the Seaport blocks and was thus part of the Seaport. In 2004 the Fulton Fish Market was still an active part of the South Street Seaport even though the…
Knowing The Score For years I was looking for a Robert DeNiro movie that had caught my fancy the one time I saw it years ago. It was a movie where he played a seasoned safe-cracker of global renown who pulls off heists in the U.S. and elsewhere and then works his way back to his real life home in Montreal. There he lives in an Art Deco designed apartment and owns a classy, but…
Moving On I’m ready. I always liked that old adage, “I was born ready.” We have had a long twenty years as a nation. We are in our third major national crisis by my reckoning. I guess that since I have no military background and don’t have kids or relatives who have served in the various wars in the Middle East (Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan), I tend to think of the national crises as being the…
The Path To Enlightenment We spent the day doing errands and driving around with MSNBC on full blast. When we were home we were glued by eye or at lest ear to the TV and cable news. The path to political enlightenment just happens to wander through the land of the pundits and pollsters and even if we didn’t care for MSNBC, which we do, we would have to be tuned into Steve Kornacki and…
Wandering Through The Desert I usually take the ride out through the ranch country of San Diego County, through the Anza Borrego Desert, on my motorcycle. The 74-mile ride is a good day in the saddle. But today I made the trip in the car with Kim and Betty since we were being followed by our Sonoma friends who had never been to this particular desert oasis. In the Spring, the super-bloom of the desert can…
He Was Right Over the last week Donald Trump has held an array of rallies where he has said many outrageous and untrue things. We as a country are unfortunately becoming immune to his rantings and have come to expect little or no truth in his words. I don’t actually think most Trump voters think his words are truthful, but rather they just enjoy his brashness and unconventional handling of every situation regardless of the…
Despondent It’s election night and there are about one third of the races that have been called by NBC News. It’s a dead heat with Biden having a slight electoral vote lead at this point (98 to 86) but it is far from an ebullient night so far. I don’t believe in getting despondent about an election because my natural optimism doesn’t lend itself to going into the dark early on. I hate all the…