Roads Less Traveled

The sign in front of a closed bar in Cocoa Beach says it all: “Go Away Irma, You Bitch!” In the immortal words of George Patton, you’ve gotta love such eloquence, especially when it’s bolstered by reports that potential victims of Hurricane Irma are taking matters into their own hands by calling on residents to fire aimlessly into the storm in an effort to shoot her dead, which is much to the consternation of the state authorities, not to mention those unlucky enough to be in the path of the stray bullets, but what can you expect when Florida law explicitly states that you’re supposed to be able to “Stand your ground”? Well, stand we did against Irma, at least in my home, but I can’t say it was a smart choice. Continue reading →

I’m driving up to the Carolinas with my RV trailer in tow in order to “to get away from it all”. In the context of leaving my home at the beach that might sound a bit incongruous, kind of like escaping from paradise, and yes, somehow the idea of towing a small house up a mountain is of limited appeal to me, but my wife managed to convince me that it is possible to live, and even thrive, without air conditioning or cable TV, because we will be too busy enjoying nature up in the higher and cooler elevations. Ha, Ha! Yes, I actually believed that! Continue reading →

I have been dabbling in some pretty risky investment vehicles for the last couple of years, and when I say risky, I mean that a craps table is like an AAA bond in comparison. Anyway, in one of those accounts I had stashed a pretty large sum of money and just let it ride for a while, and when I recently went to check on it, it had simply vanished!  My account was there, mind you-it just had a zero balance. Welcome to the brave new world of cryptocurrencies! I tried everything to get the money back: reviewing past transactions, checking the digital block chain, contacting the wallet developers…even, in desperation, rebooting-but all to no avail. In fact, the rebooting effort only served to underline that my computer had been attacked by a malicious virus which would not even allow me to log on.