Roads Less Traveled

At 11, I went to Camp Geronimo, a Boy Scout preserve high up on the Mogollon rim in northern Arizona. As the youngest Scout, it was my honor to light the great bonfire that ushered in the opening ceremony for that summer’s festivities. On the big night, hundreds of the youth and camp leaders filed into an open field and sat in a semi-circle around a stack of wood the size of a Volkswagen. Behind the scenes, one of the Scoutmasters handed me a lit torch. Continue reading →

OK, so we’re still up for the year, and still doing way better than the market, with our portfolio. That’s the good news. The bad news is, if you’ve been invested in the broad market, you’ve seen the worst opening week of any year in Wall Street’s history. Continue reading →

I am talking to a cashier in the Wekiva Springs State Park canoe rental shop (northwest of downtown Orlando). She is telling me that there are no refunds if I become afraid of alligators and decide to skedaddle back, pronto. She also tells me that it isn’t their fault if you don’t know how to paddle a canoe or if rain ruins your day. But my favorite is that it’s up to me to understand that the river does not run in a circular pattern, so the renter must know enough to turn the vessel around at some point and come back to the shop. I guess some of the guests must have come straight from Disney’s Jungle Cruise to assume that the river was round. Or they’re just a very special kind of stupid. Continue reading →