Connections Being in the midst of this last week in New York City before moving to San Diego has meant that I have been taking all the offered lunch and dinner appointments with friends and colleagues that want to send me off with good wishes. Since most of those folks live, work or just hang out in midtown, it means I have been shuttling back and forth all week, but have told myself it’s…
Going Slow Today I turn sixty-six years old. According to the Social Security Administration, I am now eligible for full retirement. I’m waiting until March to start my monthly check for the silly reason that the monthly amount will then click over the maximum amount for someone my age of $3,011. If I waited until age seventy to claim (four years from now), I could claim $3,790 per month. That means I am choosing…
Up at Night It’s 3:30am and do you know where your mind has wandered off to? There is nothing so frustrating as insomnia. The older we get, the more we come to realize that the simplest of bodily functions are the ones that give us the most peace and happiness. Few things that I want to discuss in a story do this more than a good night’s sleep. I characterize a good night’s sleep…
Best Seat in the House When the dust settles on the Impeachment of Donald J. Trump, regardless of the outcome, I feel Rep. Adam Schiff deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I’m not so sure Donald Trump will feel up to bestowing it, but I hope whomever is next to sit at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office will set the record straight. Schiff, who has represented the San Gabriel Valley (think Pasadena and…
Skating on thin ICE Those of you who follow my stories know that I am running a company that is trying to save the world one hydrogen molecule at a time. We used to be a much different company that was trying to save the world one ammonia molecule at a time. I don’t think many of my readers remember their high school chemistry so hydrogen is H2 where ammonia is NH3. You may think…
All-In My son-in-law emailed me yesterday with a business question. I am officially an advisor (compensated with some granted shares) to his start-up company, which he is launching on his own time while doing his day job. Therefore, I feel obliged to give him pragmatic business advice that tries to separate itself from my father-in-law role and the issues that might affect my daughter and two granddaughters. His start-up is like many of the things…
Selling Futures Greta Thunberg has spent the week in Davos at the World Economic Forum. Knowing her, she probably rode her bike there from Stockholm and is probably camped out on a ski slope (Swedes are a hearty bunch and Swedish climate activists are especially hearty). My calculations suggest it would take her a week to cycle there, so I bet Greta would do it in five days. She would probably give speeches along the…
Riding on the City of New Ordeals I can’t help myself. I am a child of the sixties and Arlo Guthrie is never far from my consciousness. Consider yourself lucky that I am not ready to give you my rendition of the Alice’s Restaurant Massacree in four part harmony as Arlo would say. My pal Arthur “Living Legend” Einstein, a founding member of my motorcycle gang knows Arlo well enough to have sold him his…
Word As I have mentioned in previous posts, I am working on and have now mostly finished a book on the twenty-five years of motorcycling I have done with my group, called American Flyers Motorcycle Club (AFMC). It is quite the magnum opus with 374 pages, 104,000 words 183 photographs or images and one long chart of our 60 rides over those years. I am writing this for my fellow members and me as a…
The Big Uneasy I’ve never been to New Orleans, which is amazing because there aren’t many places in the U.S. or abroad that I’ve missed visiting. I don’t know when I first heard the nickname The Big Easy, but I’m guessing it was about the time the James Conaway novel by that name was published in 1970, or at least by the time Dennis Quaid played Remy McSwain in the 1986 movie, again of the…