Driving Home
Back in St. Louis, but why? When you drive from the temperate stone walls and beaches of Rhode Island to a place that's right about 100F with 50 percent humidity and lots of sun, well, it seems downright nuts.
And as you drive, you cross over 1000 miles of America that look pretty good and not so insanely hot.
Nonetheless, I'm glad to be back.
Hard to figure, and I'm sure it's all just the way things worked out, and could have been different, and if I'd wound up in a different place I'm sure I would have an explanation. But the explanation here is pretty good: St. Louis is the capital of Cardinal Nation, a giant footprint in the Midwest, people from at least nine states who love the baseball team with the birds on the bat. As I run west I could pick them up from a radio station in Jasper and would be able to carry on at least until Ponca City.
Baseball and St. Louis, each at the heart of America.
The team is making another pennant run, as it almost always does. The population curses the heat, gets past it, and cheers them on towards October.
Monday, August 01, 2011
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Walking La Jolla Blues
Not that I had time to kill, but I needed a long walk. So I walked from the village back up to Torrey Pines (OK, with a short shot on the bus in the middle) and it was mostly about close-up views of how California is really a creature of the automobile. But in the last leg I got to the Salk Institute, took a left toward the Pacific, and found myself in a huge dirt parking lot with a truly spectacular view.
I was hoping to find the golf course, and navigate back to my room from there, but it seemed impenetrable until I spotted a gate across the moonscape of the lot.
But when I got there, the gate was chained and locked, so I wound my way to the left, towards the ocean, and wondered when they would run out of chain link fence.
Eventually they did, and the views in most directions made it pretty clear why lots and lots of people want to live here.
I walked through the brush (I'm in a suit, but no tie, and tennis shoes) and found myself on a deep back nine hole, greeted by five rabbits. Three stuck around for a photo.
They seem to live a good life, these guys. I saw about a hundred as I made my way back to the hotel. Not tame, exactly, but they didn't seem to regard me as a predator. Which I'm not. Unlike some of the golfers... there was one who had hit way too close to another group, said the sun was in his eyes, he was sorry, but the targets were unforgiving. So he yells, "If you can't accept my apology then kiss my ass!"
I'll take the rabbits.
Not that I had time to kill, but I needed a long walk. So I walked from the village back up to Torrey Pines (OK, with a short shot on the bus in the middle) and it was mostly about close-up views of how California is really a creature of the automobile. But in the last leg I got to the Salk Institute, took a left toward the Pacific, and found myself in a huge dirt parking lot with a truly spectacular view.
I was hoping to find the golf course, and navigate back to my room from there, but it seemed impenetrable until I spotted a gate across the moonscape of the lot.
Eventually they did, and the views in most directions made it pretty clear why lots and lots of people want to live here.
I walked through the brush (I'm in a suit, but no tie, and tennis shoes) and found myself on a deep back nine hole, greeted by five rabbits. Three stuck around for a photo.
They seem to live a good life, these guys. I saw about a hundred as I made my way back to the hotel. Not tame, exactly, but they didn't seem to regard me as a predator. Which I'm not. Unlike some of the golfers... there was one who had hit way too close to another group, said the sun was in his eyes, he was sorry, but the targets were unforgiving. So he yells, "If you can't accept my apology then kiss my ass!"
I'll take the rabbits.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Waiting for Insight
OK in the last ten days I've motored 1500 miles, checked out the Atlantic, walked New York City when it's over 100, and flown West and checked out the Pacific. Confronted stacks of paper, dealt with a few, ignored many, and embarked on the usual resolutions. Done the right things, done some things I'm not sure are right, opened doors, closed none. In other words, vacation, of a kind, with a bunch of work mixed in, and a few moments, a few new hopes.
Great barreling insight doesn't come with this, whether asked peacefully or frantically... do we ever really change? Only when we pull ourselves by the scruff of the neck, and is that a change, or did it always take scruff-pulling, and that's no change.
Life just opens up, day by day, and closes down, day by day. A guy I liked, a banker, my age, fought cancer as I did, but yesterday he lost. Or, the last day and threshold came to him sooner than to me, which you can treat as a loss or not. Goodbye Bob. Hello San Diego, today, and hello to the rest of my days.
OK in the last ten days I've motored 1500 miles, checked out the Atlantic, walked New York City when it's over 100, and flown West and checked out the Pacific. Confronted stacks of paper, dealt with a few, ignored many, and embarked on the usual resolutions. Done the right things, done some things I'm not sure are right, opened doors, closed none. In other words, vacation, of a kind, with a bunch of work mixed in, and a few moments, a few new hopes.
Great barreling insight doesn't come with this, whether asked peacefully or frantically... do we ever really change? Only when we pull ourselves by the scruff of the neck, and is that a change, or did it always take scruff-pulling, and that's no change.
Life just opens up, day by day, and closes down, day by day. A guy I liked, a banker, my age, fought cancer as I did, but yesterday he lost. Or, the last day and threshold came to him sooner than to me, which you can treat as a loss or not. Goodbye Bob. Hello San Diego, today, and hello to the rest of my days.
Saturday, July 09, 2011
Ring Finger, Left Hand
Maybe I read the wrong stuff, but I don't see much about this principal custom of our tribe: the "I'm Married" sign that people wear, all the time.
Mostly women, I notice. Men, not so much, and those who do have a faint aroma of Ashley Wilkes.
But women really do do it, not just a band but almost always a big-ass engagement ring along side. And I am probably delusional, but even now, and for my whole adult life, I've think I've had it waved at me. Usually subtly, a re-crossing of hands. See there, buddy boy. I'm married, and back off.
I get it with flight attendants, who must spend their lives being hit on. But what is it with all the rest of the babes out there?
C'mon. I'm married too, and I'm not on the prowl. Am I staring? Maybe, if you are gorgeous; it's a genetic thing. But most of you, my dear ladies, are not gorgeous. You are, however, women. Which to me makes you presumptively interesting to talk to. At this age and body mass that's about all my eye contact means.
I really don't get it. Why do women - so many of whom are so fiercely independent in all other respects - want to parade their marital status at all times? Is it really just to fend off the creeps?
Why isn't there a movement of cool women who don't want to be Melanie Wilkes?
Maybe I read the wrong stuff, but I don't see much about this principal custom of our tribe: the "I'm Married" sign that people wear, all the time.
Mostly women, I notice. Men, not so much, and those who do have a faint aroma of Ashley Wilkes.
But women really do do it, not just a band but almost always a big-ass engagement ring along side. And I am probably delusional, but even now, and for my whole adult life, I've think I've had it waved at me. Usually subtly, a re-crossing of hands. See there, buddy boy. I'm married, and back off.
I get it with flight attendants, who must spend their lives being hit on. But what is it with all the rest of the babes out there?
C'mon. I'm married too, and I'm not on the prowl. Am I staring? Maybe, if you are gorgeous; it's a genetic thing. But most of you, my dear ladies, are not gorgeous. You are, however, women. Which to me makes you presumptively interesting to talk to. At this age and body mass that's about all my eye contact means.
I really don't get it. Why do women - so many of whom are so fiercely independent in all other respects - want to parade their marital status at all times? Is it really just to fend off the creeps?
Why isn't there a movement of cool women who don't want to be Melanie Wilkes?
Monday, July 04, 2011
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Red Hot Mommas
Yesterday was a pretty crappy day but it was made much better because I happened to see a fair number of pregnant woman walking around town.
Used to be that these ladies would dress in muumuus and it was great, they were demure and near-matronly and peaceful. Now, the style seems to be tight tops and lots of exposure, as if to say, "Hey, I'm pregnant! Deal with it!"
Either way, and any other way, I'm a big fan. Pregnant woman are disarmingly beautiful. They capture motherhood, sex, peace, the future, hope - practically everything that's worth a damn.
I know it's not always much fun for the participants, especially the final act. (I had a friend who said that for her, childbirth was like pulling your lower lip over your head.) But what a process, and how magnificent they are while great with child.
Yesterday was a pretty crappy day but it was made much better because I happened to see a fair number of pregnant woman walking around town.
Used to be that these ladies would dress in muumuus and it was great, they were demure and near-matronly and peaceful. Now, the style seems to be tight tops and lots of exposure, as if to say, "Hey, I'm pregnant! Deal with it!"
Either way, and any other way, I'm a big fan. Pregnant woman are disarmingly beautiful. They capture motherhood, sex, peace, the future, hope - practically everything that's worth a damn.
I know it's not always much fun for the participants, especially the final act. (I had a friend who said that for her, childbirth was like pulling your lower lip over your head.) But what a process, and how magnificent they are while great with child.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Risk
What pervades the business world, at the least the world of claims in business that I see so often, is the way we handle risk. Not just enterprise risk, or economic risk, but the risk that someone who works for you will do some damn fool thing and you'll get sued.
The first thing is insurance, and there is a bunch of that available. You can insure everything from an executive harassing an underling to a stockholder saying your directors are crooks, in addition to the usual slips and falls and traffic accidents.
Where it gets interesting is when you can't buy insurance. So you manage, with training and well-drafted contracts and avoidance of situations where the risk exceeds the reward.
Makes you wonder how less risky things would be if there were no insurance. We'd all try harder, as we do with the non-insurance solutions.
Just as I've wondered how risk would be managed if the people making decisions would be held personally liable if they screw up. We lawyers, and the doctors, and some others face this, and we seem to do OK (but we have insurance....). What if the financial types who manage others' money thought they'd be personally liable if, say, they put their clients into the wrong fund, or derivatives that they knew were only riding a bubble? Would they insist on a little more caution?
I think it was that way more often in the past. My grandfather was a director, senior executive and shareholder in a bank in the '30's, it was closed in the Bank Holiday, never reopened, and he spent much of the rest of his life in litigation. Based, as I understand it, on state law at that time that held out personal liability for bank directors - my Mom used to call it "double indemnity". For him it was too late - I guess he "won", but his career was ruined. I would guess that his peers, however, through the rest of the decade, seeing what happened to him and others, became a lot more careful.
And maybe the big boys don't see that as a good thing. If the financial people are careful, they shy away from risk, maybe the result is depression in the '30's, stagflation in the '70's, and whatever this economy turns out to hold in the teens. Bad politics. But if it liquidates all the undeserving debt, maybe a good new start.
What pervades the business world, at the least the world of claims in business that I see so often, is the way we handle risk. Not just enterprise risk, or economic risk, but the risk that someone who works for you will do some damn fool thing and you'll get sued.
The first thing is insurance, and there is a bunch of that available. You can insure everything from an executive harassing an underling to a stockholder saying your directors are crooks, in addition to the usual slips and falls and traffic accidents.
Where it gets interesting is when you can't buy insurance. So you manage, with training and well-drafted contracts and avoidance of situations where the risk exceeds the reward.
Makes you wonder how less risky things would be if there were no insurance. We'd all try harder, as we do with the non-insurance solutions.
Just as I've wondered how risk would be managed if the people making decisions would be held personally liable if they screw up. We lawyers, and the doctors, and some others face this, and we seem to do OK (but we have insurance....). What if the financial types who manage others' money thought they'd be personally liable if, say, they put their clients into the wrong fund, or derivatives that they knew were only riding a bubble? Would they insist on a little more caution?
I think it was that way more often in the past. My grandfather was a director, senior executive and shareholder in a bank in the '30's, it was closed in the Bank Holiday, never reopened, and he spent much of the rest of his life in litigation. Based, as I understand it, on state law at that time that held out personal liability for bank directors - my Mom used to call it "double indemnity". For him it was too late - I guess he "won", but his career was ruined. I would guess that his peers, however, through the rest of the decade, seeing what happened to him and others, became a lot more careful.
And maybe the big boys don't see that as a good thing. If the financial people are careful, they shy away from risk, maybe the result is depression in the '30's, stagflation in the '70's, and whatever this economy turns out to hold in the teens. Bad politics. But if it liquidates all the undeserving debt, maybe a good new start.
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