Hi Jim, I will spend my hours at this airport by reflecting a bit.
I read the “Devil … Hindmost” back in November 1999, by chance, and started selling down my shares immediately afterwards. Good and funny book, for those who survive intact to appreciate the humor.
I had lethargically followed the world over the past few days. You know, the GATA, stagnant price of gold, ‘anomalous’ rising of gold mining shares, and disappearing warehouse stock on the one hand, and on the other, ever more steep annual interest rate as a function of maturity time, hope-inspiring equity market action, and the continuing utterances of interested parties on CNBC.
The world following each day amounted to 10-15 minutes of Internet access and CNBC glancing, and that includes time for quickly responding to e-mails, thus making SI posting not feasible. The world following was generally followed on with swimming, and then a breakfast of eggs, sausages and Starbucks. On the swimming, I quickly picked up my buddy’s habit of changing into successive pairs of swimming trunks after each swim during the course of the day and putting all of the newly purchased trunks into the washing machine before venturing out to dinner each day.
I understand Euro interest rate did not decline, Japanese got a new leader, and US had good auto sales, along with strong housing market.
My energy saved from world watching was redirected to car shopping (toss up between new BMW M3, antique Jaguar E type, classic Range Rover Defender 90) and land shopping (a few acres on the beach vs. 99 acres in a valley costing one eighth as little), and if my early-retired buddy follows through, he will then have contributed to auto and real estate action down the road and over the next valley. My buddy is currently deeply in the equity market again and has been since late February. He is very good in what he does with bonds and OK in stocks. I am not tempted to copy his moves in the equity market, but find the land interesting, more as a life style. He is tempted to copy my moves in platinum, but not gold, preferring ‘live money’ and action. We then agreed that land is as dead as metals, but that all his proposed acres would fit in about three to five large safe deposit boxes, depending on whether filled to the brim with platinum or a mix with gold.
Much energy was also consumed in conversation, swimming with the daily visiting kids (living down the beach with the still friend ex-wife), doing the Sony Playstation 2, and eating. Yes, a lot of eating. Skipping the verbs to focus on what is important: Tuna sashimi perfect, deep-fried soft-shell crabs evil, and beers cold. I also had some steak; I do not normally care for large chunks of beef, but some how the atmosphere at Buzz’s in Kailua has always been debilitating to normal dietary caution.
In between bites of steak and chugs of beer, we managed to temporarily stabilize a developing family emergency. Not my family and not my emergency. To summarize in one mouthful of words, an otherwise perfectly considerate, respectable, and family oriented mutual, San Francisco based, married, and soon to be father to second kid buddy of Jay and his steak eating buddy had, by report of my wife from Hong Kong, been propositioning a friend of my wife’s, bring shame, consternation, and shadow of doubts upon the whole gang. We figure the guy needs help, fast. My Hawaii based buddy will take time out to do a face-to-face in San Francisco.
Yes, much drama in the last five days. My wife thinks my buddy in Hawaii is a bad influence on me “… doing nothing, chasing girls, changing into swimming trunks, …”. My buddy worries that all his buddies are wrongly viewing his divorce (five years now) and subsequent early-retirement (two years now) as a survivable, or worse, an enjoyable, adventure. Well, let’s just say events could have turned out much worse.
Overall, thinking back on zipping along the coastal highway, surveyed the plots of land, watching the surf, and the chatting at Duke’s happy-hour on Waikiki beach, I am thinking the James Bond movie title “The world is not enough”. So, April is over, and now getting back to work and asset preservation.
Flight 853 calling. Beijing awaits, then Yichang (site of 3G dam) tomorrow, Hong Kong later.
Chugs, Jay |
