Brown Motion

This century only 20 years old has already pushed the boundaries of never before seen statistics and many firsts. Some nutjobs with skewed ideology flew commercial planes into large buildings killing 3,500 in the richest economy on earth. India did a global pilot with 1.3 Billion people when they decided to remove their most popular paper currency in an exercise called demonetization. Net result - some black market types got hammered.  Poor people (which is half of India's population) got hammered.  Today net result is that the grey economy continues with new Rupee notes.  Duh! World stock markets reached all time highs.  Man made indices to represent the fastest growth companies rang up huge profits as cost of capital plummeted.  World banks dropped interest rates to levels not seen ever.  Some went to Zero and some Negative.  It costs money to put it in a bank not the other way. More people are alive than ever before approaching 8 billion....

This Saturday my kid and I took part in a meditative hiking experience.  At the foothills of Mt. Diablo, the tallest eminence in the eastern bay area of San Francisco the hike was organized by a non profit seeking to preserve the wilderness. This parcel we hiked on is about couple thousand acres and the sun was beginning to warm the morning as 25 souls gathered to be part of the walk.  The non profit purchased this parcel with private donations from a ranching family and has used the reserve to educate citizens and save it from the pressure of over development. You see the memorial stone of the Italian immigrant family who sold their land to the non profit at the entrance to the land. After a brief intro to the agenda for the morning from the lady leader of our meditation and hike we set off. The hike began in a sub division with nice homes nestled on a plateau.  We mostly marched single file on a fire road and then into brush and thistles that were growing...

On another day off from work we visited the California wine region of Napa.  A valley set amidst a series of north south hills on either side of highway 29 we went to a favorite haunt of ours called V.Sattui.  This is a family business which I must say has got a bit snobbish since the last time we visited them a decade ago. It is more geared toward large events and parties and one off buyers are not in favor it appeared.  This is evident with the generally lackadaisical attitude of the deli staff as well as the bar keep of which they had two attending to a white couple.  When we walked up there was no movement to attend to us or even acknowledge our presence.  Was that bit racist perhaps?  Maybe.  But we are suckers (literally) for two of their beverages.  One is a Madeira and another a fortified Muscat grape juice branded as Angelica. Prices in the last 10 years have jumped about 30% or more.  A standard sized bottle of the brandy f...

It is said one must focus on what one likes and have a positive outlook about life in general.  I say its worth trying.  In the spirit of that concept below I will share some of my simple joys that I can partake as I go through life. These also tend to actually improve the quality of my life.  In no particular order these are things I see, read or do.  Food or Drink I consume or people I meet.  I must say the latter is a relatively low percentage in attributing to quality of life but that's just me. I am sure people can figure out a similar matrix for themselves and figure out how to boost the engagement with things that matter to them most.  Perhaps we will all be happy that way! Humor is a big part of my life and I seek it out in many ways - sometimes it just happens to be in your face when you least expect it... While Bourdain is gone he left an amazing legacy behind.  I thoroughly enjoyed watching him delve into a new frontier using a...

It was going to be triple digit heat.  Everywhere you looked.  In our vicinity.  So we figured we would visit a cool body of water.  It had been a while.  A long while.  We went to Lake Tahoe.  Straddling the CA and Nevada state borders it is the largest of any alpine lakes in all North America. At a height of over 6,200 ft above mean sea level this amazing blue water was very inviting. Of course it also meant taking our chances with many like minded folks taking their conveyance to the mountains causing a big traffic jam.  It was not too bad.  We did get out early enough to beat a large horde of wanna get away crowds and made it to the lake in 3 hours. The rim is around 70 miles in circumference but we chose to visit the South end and do some hiking followed by a visit to the exact opposite end also on the California side and wade the waters on the shores. The south end was an inspired mile long hike along the slope on a portion cal...