Keep On Toking

Obama in college

President Obama's second inauguration takes place, fittingly, on a national holiday honouring MLK.

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Eitan lies on the sofa watching The Simpsons: "I seriously hope they cancel school tomorrow."
Me: "Every day is an opportunity. Unless, that is, you are lying in bed."

Eitan: "Unless the opportunity is to lie in bed."
Me: "Touché."

Sunshine

Moab, Utah

As for today's snow fall, well, the old timers tell me about the winter of '62-63 , the second coldest on record, after 1683-84. Everything froze solid: canals, lakes and rivers, including the Thames. The Big Freeze, as it became known, went until March with the worst in January : pipes burst, schools shut (no plumbing) and neighborhood water trucks supplied potable water (their faucets frozen tight); the electricity grid down and gas supplies insufficient for demand.  Waterways and commerce came to a grinding halt. Snow drifts 20 feet. No doubt tomorrow's commuters will suffer their fate at 15 cm.

Madeleine has a sleep-over with Marcus'  and the intrepids spend the morning fending off abuse from Marcus's older brothers who stuff snow down his shirt and generally pummel the poor dears.  Eitan teams us with Cyrus to romp in the snow at Palewell Park.

Sheen Lane

Red House

The Red House located at the junction of York Ave, Richmond Park Road and Sheen Lane, an ancient road, which follows the route of medieval field boundaries. It linked the market town of Kingston with the village of Mortlake and the river to London.  

The street lamp (pictured) burned gas until '64 when South West London switched to electricity; prior, a council man peddled through the ward igniting the flames with a long wand, returning the next morning, at dawn, to extinguish them.

A Boy And His Dog

All sports events cancelled and we enjoy an unusual morning at home.  We take the pooch for a walk, before it all goes to slush, and Madeleine builds a snow man.

The Sony Building goes for $1.1 billion - 2007 all over again.

“We’re flawed because we want so much more. We’re ruined because we get these things and wish for what we had.”
--Don Draper

Grit

Ten centimetres of snow bring the capital to a stand still (that is less than four inches people).  Flights  and buses cancelled, schools across the country closed (including Hampton but not Emanuel); this morning's trains late at the sniff of foul weather and I have a hard time getting a return taxi to Sheen since, outside the centre-city, the snowpack "unpredictable, mate, I can't be taking the risk " As if.  The BBC dedicates 30 minutes of top-of-the-hour news to the weather: "a 'crocodile line' of five cars stuck on the motor route in Wales! We came across a lady who had been in her car for a while and she was delighted to see us." There is a run on the grocery store.  As the Radio 4 concludes solemnly: "A day London put to the test."

The British love a good weather crisis and, since Friday, an unexpected long weekend.

Photo: Telegraph

Shoe Laces

Eitan ties

This morning I meet a gal at Ontario Teachers who is full of pep and vigour: she opened the London offices and it doesn't hurt that the pension manages $117 billion, second largest in Canada (after CPP). This the future of 180,000 teachers, principals and administrators while already supporting 120,000 retirees.  A reason the pension so large: 10% IRRs over ten years.  Still, the pension "gap' about $10 B, which means more contributions from its members.  Without higher-return illiquid assets like infrastructure and private equity, it would be worse.

Madeleine in a good mood.
Me: "How was swimming practise kiddo?"
Madeleine: "It was cancelled."
Me: "Oh?"
Madeleine: "A kid poo'd in the pool."
Me: "You're kidding."
Madeleine: "We saw some one fish it out with a net. And they did an evacuation bell."
Me:
Madeleine: "To get every body out."
Me:
Madeleine: "And some one had a heart attack."
Me: "Is this a public pool?"
Madeleine: "Yep."

Tilden Trail

Tilden Park trail

Earlier this month Katie takes us on a run that goes up and then goes down. Puff puff puff.

A bench plaque at the top honours Brian Maxwell, the founder of Berkeley based PowerBar which became the go to food of ultra athletes and i bankers. Maxwell himself a runner and, despite being told as a teenager of his congenital heart condition, he persevered, and in 1977 was ranked third in the world in the marathon by Track and Field News. At 51 years of age he died of a heart attack.

The scientist and co founder of PowerBar, Bill Vaughan, the father of childhood friend Brian, who is now CEO and owner of sports gel GU.  My friends and I tested GU on the San Francisco and Sacramento marathons in the 1990s.

Linebacker Patrick Willis on 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick's performance against the Packers: "It wows me."

Glory Hole

Lake Berryessa, CA

The morning glory spillway in Napa, California, is the largest in the world and allows water to bypass the Monticello Dam when at capacity.  The Glory Hole is about 61m from the dam; the distance from the funnel to the exit point - which is situated in the south side of the canyon - is about 213m. The outside diameter is 22m, slowly narrowing to 8.5m at the exit (Photo from The Earth Story)

I jog around La Cité on a dark cold deserted morning and wonder, as I sometimes do, whether I incorrectly set the alarm and it is really 2AM.

Nestle Toll House

Eitan bakes

Eitan puts his baking business in to action, preparing the first batch of chocolate chip cookies. "Today", he says, "I am just going to do some cookies. I've decided not to do muffins.  I have enough to make 18 cookies so I plan to sell 15.  The remaining can be for the family" which is awfully nice of the boy.

As for the cookie .. . .the original chocolate chip cookie, the Toll House Cookie, was "invented " by Ruth Graves Wakefield in the 1930s. Ruth and her husband owned the Toll House Inn, near Whitman, Massachusetts. Ruth cooked for her guests, and one day had to substitute semi-sweet chocolate for baker's chocolate in a cookie recipe. She chopped the chocolate in bits, but when she took the cookies from the oven, the semi-sweet chocolate had not melted into the dough as the baker's chocolate had.

As it so happened the chocolate bar had been a gift from Andrew Nestle of the Nestle Chocolate Company. As the Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe became popular, sales of Nestle's semi-sweet chocolate bar increased. Andrew Nestle and Ruth Wakefield struck a deal. Nestle would print the Toll House Cookie recipe on its packaging and Ruth Wakefield would have a lifetime supply of Nestle chocolate. (source:  Nestle website)

Eitan, before doing the door-to-door: "I really want to go. I am excited. And kinda nervous."

Bounce

Eitan has a couple of thrilling football games this weekend.  Yesterday, his Hampton School defeats Dulwich College 5-4 in a hard fought affair that never sees our side trailing (Gordon Ramsey checks out the action). Today Elm Grove advances to the final eight in the Surrey Cup by defeating Barnstead Colts 2-1.  Coach on Eitan's second half: "electric."  We now watch Man U v. Liverpool because that\s what people do in the country.

Madeleine swims a personal best in the 50-meter freestyle at the Epson Rainbow Leisure Centre.  Her time of 37 seconds one off the Surrey Championships qualification time and we are thrilled by her performance.  Today she competes the 200 freestyle.  Me, I am shortly to Paris and in to the full swing of 2013.

New Yawk

Grand Central Station Oyster Bar

I am back from a one-nighter in Manhattan which I would not recommend. Nor would I recommend two trans-Atlantics in one week no matter how effiicient.

I stay at the Waldorf Astoria which, while not The Roosevelt, somehow appropriate as Sonnet and I watch the final two episodes of Mad Men , season 5 (In season 2 Don Draper lives at The Roosevelt during marital problems).  My favorite use of the Waldorf sitting in the beautiful lobby after an early jet-lagged run in Central Park, drinking coffee, people-watching and making calls.

And did you know the Waldorf Astoria the first hotel to offer room service ?

Tube 150

Piccadilly tube at Barron's Court station

London celebrates the oldest metro in the world and there are days when the Circle and Hammersmith & City lines feel every bit their age, clunking and clacking between stations, pausing for no reason or to allow other trains to pass, taking their good sweet time. This somehow charming or even romantic unless, of course, you are a commuter.  The more recent tracks more efficient, carrying 1.2 billion passengers in 2011/12 or third most in Europe after Moscow and Paris.

Justin and I watch the Chelsea Blue lose to Swansea city at Stamford Bridge; beforehand I use a fork and knife on my beef burger.

Work Time

At Columbia Business School, ca '97 (photo from Adam Ballachey)

Back to the job for most of us. Unfortunately eurozone unemployment is 11.3% or 19 million people out of work; Spain the worst off at 26% and half of young people without a job.  Greece (25%) and Portugal (17%) not far behind. The difference of the haves (Germany, Netherlands and Austria below 6%) and have-nots striking : could this lead to social unrest ?  France thinks so as the taxi drivers to strike on Thursday and, since they are French, they will use their idle time to block the motor routes and central roads making everybody miserable.

Madeleine a trooper on her first day back to school (Eitan boots up tomorrow).  We walk to the bus stop in darkness; our gal frets about her pe kit, left at school on the last day of term . I worry about signing a next client.  Usual stuff, across the generations.

Madeleine: "I love taking the bus home" (Madeleine started taking the bus by herself last term).

Me: "Oh?"

Madeleine: "It is, like, freedom."

Welcome Home

Brentford council estates from the M4 

We arrive to London, greeted by what our pilot cheerfully describes as "seasonal weather" - cold, grey, dreary - but, as I tell a colleague on my mobile, "we choose to live here. " This always gets a chuckle as the counter party knows the alternative California.

Brentford btw is the first point on the tidal Thames easily fordable by foot (before dredging). It is believed Julius Caesar crossed the river here during his invasion of Britain in 54 BC.  Today Caesar would be greeted, and repelled, by the chavs (yuf identified through their love of tracksuits and burberry, splashing themselves with the tackiest designer brands and gold jewelery, and Sovereign rings.  Usually they come from a working class background but there are also very wealthy chavs like Jordan aka Katie Price).

Brentford, despite itself, has been on the up-and-up with new high rises and the Thames Valley University here; GlaxoSmithKline's HQ visible from the flyover and the Brentford FC offers some League One action.  It is near near Heathrow and remains affordable. It would have made for a good investment even ten years ago.

West by Southeast

We return to London tomorrow on the over night trans Atlantic. This is kind of how I feel.

Today we visit our friends Rob and Sloan and their beautiful children. Rob's Latin America trade finance business is growing its capital base, producing consistent solid returns before, during and since the financial recession; Sloan's exec coaching business thriving w/ 22 clients and growing.  We re live a number of key development moments like the time we all called it quits on the corporate scene and started our own businesses.

This evening we spend with Roger and Greta and their beautiful children.  They have made the return re location to the Bay Area so Roger can take his eight years at Microsoft to Box, one of the hottest companies in SV, growing 300% per year.  Roger and I re live a number of key developmental moments like the time we shared a flat on the Upper West Side and the roof nearly collapsed from rain fill - only our splashing about the roof deck searching for the plug in freezing dark temps saved the moment and Roger's high end stereo system, about the only thing of value in our place at the time.

Tunnel At Sunset

This the tunnel that connects Cordonices Park and the Berkeley Rose Garden, far side. When I was a kid, the tunnel covered with graffiti and smelled of urine (it has been cleaned up, along with the rest of the park); I found the passage a bit menacing - it has appeared in a dream or two in middle life.

Some Berkeley histrory, from the Berkeley Gazette, September 27, 1933 (and the Web), states: " A pedestrian tunnel runs under Euclid, connecting the Rose Garden with Codornices Park. In this section, from 1912 to 1928, before the Rose Garden was established, a 275-foot-long wooden streetcar and road trestle spanned Codornices Creek along Euclid. In 1928, the trestle was filled in, a culvert laid through it for the creek, and the pedestrian tunnel constructed."

Backyard

Madeleine spends the afternoon about the house.

We are with Spencer and Alex and their three beautiful children who bracket Eitan and Madeleine by age. Pre-children, the four of us in London from '97 to '99 until Alex's job at JP Morgan relocated them back to US; Spencer took an early role at Silver Point Capital, a hedge fund founded by several Goldman alum, which amassed billions.  The rest, as they say, is history.  During those post MBA early days, Friday evening cocktails were de rigeur.

Small Business

The kids contemplate the New Year with new businesses: Madeleine considers reviving her gardening service "Dream Clean" and Eitan selling baked goods.  He puts together a business plan which includes costs, prices, a survey outline and "procedures for my business", which he will do from week to week.  Of course there is some discussion - negotiation - between the Shakespeares on mutual joint efforts and Eitan offers Madeleine a 10% cut for going to Waitrose to buy the ingredients (10% declined as "too little").  Madeleine has the brilliant idea of "prescriptions" (she means "subscriptions") for ongoing repeat customers and this is how an idea goes into action.

Eitan: "Can we get a ping pong table?"
Me: "Where would we put it?"
Eitan: "In the garage."
Me: "Sure. You can save up your money."
Eitan: "I am going to have to put my business in over drive."

Welcome 2013 !

We spend the 31st at Camp Connell (est. 1923), pictured, drinking beer (me); working (Katie, taking advantage of wi fi); begging for candy or beef jerky (kids); being patient (Sonnet).

The Orenstein Stanfills go to 11PM and reminisce about 1993 to 1994 when I hosted a party on Nob Hill for about 150 people.  Adam brought a professional lighting system to take black and white photographs of the guests; Chip a sound system and I and Jana supplied the apartment, owned by Tyler's dad, with booze to keep us going until 6AM.  Unfortunately I failed to cover the living room's thick white carpet leaving a wall to wall black hole. Sonnet and I drove hours to the one carpet-cleaning rental in the Bay Area open on New Year's Day - Burlingame - and spent the afternoon preying for a miracle.

I flew to South Korea that night to meet with eye frame manufacturers (but that is another story).

Eitan: "I am so bored. I know what, I will try to lick my chest like Rusty. .. "
Me: "How about licking your balls, like Rusty."
Eitan: "Ha ha ha!"
Me to Sonnet: "Two words that crack up Eitan: Rusty and balls."
Madeleine: "Charming, Dad."