On Jumping

Print by Alexandra Venti, pictured, who I otherwise do not know. I thought  cool.

It has been some time since I have jumped off the ledge, into something new, fearful and thrilled. Trailhead Capital is ten years old somehow.  Kids are nearly adolescent. My best friends become more so. Travel often sees the same routes.  . Sonnet and I celebrated our crystal anniversary. . .  Not that I am complaining but sometimes a shake-up good for the soul.  Sonnet and I agree : as I approach my next birthday, re-creating one's self becomes more difficult with age.

Eitan's joy for his new mobile phone turns to tears when he drops the SIM card behind the car seat. I see him, butt out the door, searching the car , 7AM.

PE Awards

I am in my penguin suit (Eitan assembles my bow-tie with complete confidence) to attend the annual RealDeals Private Equity Awards 2012 in Mayfair. About a thousand of us fill the Grand Ballroom at the Hilton Park Lane.  Astorg is up for "Fundraising of the Year" which goes, instead, to BC Partners who raises €6.5 billion to our €1 billion.

Joining my table, along with a number of Astorg investors, is Justin who notes that Natalie's first deal with GMT Communications, a London buyout firm, was BigPoint, which is up for the "Dach Deal of the Year" award. When sold in 2011, BigPoint produced GMT's highest return of any investment the firm made during its 17-year history. Mind you, Natalie had been a partner for less than one year when she convinced her colleagues to do it. Midas touch.

Otherwise at home the kids use their after-school time to bake Martin and Helen a thank-you cake for the trampoline, which the Shakespeares not only use but now invite their cohorts to join along with them. Soon Madeleine may get the idea to sell tickets. It's coming.

Summer Term Is 'On'

Back to school dude.

The Brit school year runs from about early September until July the next year. Most schools , including ours, has three-terms , split by a week-long ‘half-term’ break used to fly to Spain or some other colonised coastline. The terms are separated by Christmas and Easter, giving us a couple more weeks of holiday. Another six to eight weeks breaks one school year from the next. ..   Generally the public (ie, private) schools have more holiday than state (ie, public) schools : this allows us parents to max out on skiing or where ever.

This works out to 13 weeks of school holiday in the UK vs 10 or 11 in the US, depending on the school district. The difference, of course, the concentration : in the states, summers may go from mid-May to September. Endless. I sure recall some lazy yuf , waking up with a couple dollars for comic books, walking across UC campus to Telegraph Avenue for vinyl records and video games. Lunch a slice of Blondie's pizza+a Coke.

Sonnet and I now debate the Shakespeares freedom. By 4th grade, I was solo on public transportation (No. 7 bus from Milvia to Euclid). By 6th, it was the paper route (unaccompanied, of course).  9th I was biking from swimming practise to West Campus.  Eitan and Madeleine have yet to experience similar liberties , though I am pretty relaxed by it all.  Parenting now more protective than ever - plus the media freaks us out.  In a city : who lurks and where ? 

Black Death

Me: "You won't believe what I learned."
Eitan, Madeleine:
Me: "First, who can tell me what the plague was?"
Eitan: "It was when disease was passed from people by the fleas on rats."
Madeleine: "There were two plagues. One of them was a blood plague, which is when you cough blood until you die. The other plague, right before the London Fire, so that would be 1666, made your nose, ears, toes and fingers fall off. And your eyeballs would bleed."
Me: "Good stuff. Anyway, you know how they built a new cafe at Palewell Park?  Well, during the excavations they found skulls and skeletons. They believe it was a plague dump."
Eitan: "What's a plague dump?"
Me: "When people died during the plague they chucked them on a barge and brought them up-river to Mortlake then took them to a pit in Palewell Park where they would dissolve the bodies with lye.
Eitan, Madeleine:
Me: "Still want to play football there?"
Madeleine: "Yeah. What's the big deal?"
Me: "Fair enough I guess."

Dad's note: The Great Plague from 1664 to 1666 was the last major epidemic of the bubonic plague in England. It happened during the centuries-long period of the Second Pandemic, an extended period of intermittent bubonic plague epidemics which began in Europe in 1347, the first year of the "Black Death" and lasted until 1750. The Great Plague killed an estimated 100,000 people, about 20% of London's population. Bubonic plague is transmitted through the bite of an infected flea. The 1654–1666 epidemic was on a far smaller scale than the earlier "Black Death" pandemic; it was remembered afterwards as the "great" plague only because it was the last widespread outbreak of bubonic plague in England during the four-hundred-year timespan of the Second Pandemic.
Source: London City Museum
Photo: Wellcome Trust Library

Xavier

Xavier has built one of the most successful buy-out firms in the world : according to the Wall Street Journal, Astorg #3, by performance, for the vintage years 1997 to 2010.

Over breakfast. Madeleine: "What would be your last wish if you were going to die?"
Me: "Not to die?"
Madeleine: "I mean seriously."
Me: "OK - To be surrounded by you, your brother and Sonnet."
Madeleine: "But what if you have a disease and we could catch it? Then we would die, too."
Me: "Good point. Any suggestions then?"
Madeleine: "Me wearing a dress ?"
Me: "Wow. You would do that?"
Madeleine: "Yeah. But only if you were really going to die."
Me:
Madeleine: "And no faking either, Dad."
Me: "I will do my very best."

Cap Ferrat

I am in Saint Jean Cap Ferrat, Cote D'Azure, France for a few days with Astorg.  CF located on a peninsula next to Beaulieu-su-Mer and Villefrance-sur-Mer and extends out to Cap Ferrat, pictured. The charm and weather attract European aristocracy and international millionaires : Larry Ellison and Bill Gates, have a place here.  In fact, the most expensive house in the world just behind my hotel, purchased by a Russian Oligarch, for €390 million. 


Madeleine and I walk home from my office. Madeleine: "Can we stop at a store? I want to buy something."

Me: "Sure. What do you want to get?"
Madeleine: "Candy. Crisps. Or beef jerky."
Me: "Beef Jerky?"
Madeleine: "I haven't had it in a really long time."
Me: "I bet."
Madeleine:"Did you know that Mr. B  [Madeleine's teacher] lives there?"
Me: "Oh? And how do we know that?"
Madeleine: "He told us. Plus he has a room mate."
Me: "A man or a woman?"
Madeleine: "A man I guess."
Me: "What would you think if he was living with a woman?"
Madeleine: "It would be OK. But only if she were married."
Me: "You mean married to another guy?"
Madeleine: "Yes."
Me: "That's interesting. What do you think would happen?"
Madeleine: "They would probably get divorced."

John Elway

Whenever I see John Elway, pictured at DIA, I think of the '82 Big Game and smile. 

Elway, coached by his father Jack, the best college QB in the nation and Stanford a top ranked football team. Cal, despite outnumbering Stanford by 33,000 students, suffering another mediocre season. Then The Play : a five lateral kickoff return touchdown, no-time left , giving Cal an improbable 25-20 victory. Followed, five days later, by Thanksgiving with my cousin Carl, the trombone player for the Stanford band which made The Play possible by being on the field. And, finally, Elway on the Today Program, in tears, interviewed by Jane Pauley. All this makes a Bears fan proud. 

Elway, for his part, drafted #1 in the NFL, played five Super Bowls (winning two), voted to nine Pro Bowls, selected NFL MVP in '87 and inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 2004.

Elway equally adept at business, too: co-owner of the Arena Football team Colorado Crush; owner of two steakhouse restaurants named "Elway's" (One in the upscale Cherry Creek shopping district, and the other is in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in downtown Denver); owner of five auto dealerships, called John Elway Autos (sold to AutoNation in 1997 for $82.5 million); owner two Toyota Scion dealerships, one in Manhattan Beach, California and another in Ontario, California; owner of a Chevrolet dealership in Englewood, Colorado, and a Chrysler Jeep dealership in Greeley, Colorado.  In September 2008, Elway became the spokesperson for OpenSports.com. In 2008, Elway had LASIK eye surgery and endorsed Icon LASIK in the Denver area in November 2008.

He still does not have the Axe.

Moe Sonnet Katie

One more from the wedding.

We arrive in London in one piece.  I assign chores : Eitan gets the backyard, Madeleine the front. Plus each must write a report on a New Yorker article I hand them in Denver, which Eitan turns into paper airplanes. Fair enough.

Over dinner. Me: "What do you kids want to ask your grandparents, seeing how they are sixty years older than you."
Sonnet: "Not to put any pressure on you or anything."
Madeleine: "Like what do you mean?"
Me: "It's like looking into the future. You can ask them anything and they will answer it."
Moe, Gracie:
Me: "Anything at all."
Madeleine: "Do you like sushi?"

Marcus's Groomsmen

Usher #1 

The Best Man

Usher #3

And the Ring Bearer . .. .

Untucked

 

Madeleine, for her part, keeps her shirt tucked in throughout the service then begs me to release her from this onerous responsibility. Her whole being craves this freedom.  I relent.  Note the handkerchief in the left pocket. That's my girl.

Marcus And Adrianne Get Married

The wedding party

Me: "What do you think of Marcus and Adrianne's wedding?"
Madeleine: "I am really happy that they got married."
Me: "Why do you think they are such a good match?"
Madeleine: "Well, I can feel it when I am near them and they act really happily around each other."
Me: "Who do you think is the boss?"
Eitan: "Well, um, Marcus is kind of like you because he is funny all the time but is not quite as strict. And Adrianne is like mum because she tries hard to make everything as nice as possible for people. And tries to be as organised as possible."
Me: "Nice brown-nosing."
Eitan: "What's that mean?"
Sonnet: "What your father means is that you are trying to pay us a complement."
Eitan: "No it's not. I'm going to look it up on my Kindle."
Me: "Try a Google."
Madeleine: "I am going to ask Mr B  [Madeleine's teacher]"
Me: "I imagine he would enjoy explaining it to you."
Sonnet: "Can we put a stop to this please?"
Eitan: "I am definitely looking it up now."
Sonnet: "Let us all just be happy for Marcus and Adrianne."
Gracie: "Yes!"

Marcus And Sonnet

Brother and sister

Marcus and Adrianne's wedding day goes to plan. We awake to glorious sunshine and ready ourselves for the festivities which means an hour of preparation for Sonnet and a two-minute shower for me (Grace stays at the hotel since Maggie bites the bride's niece on the face).

The kids have to be roused from their slumber-party in Auntie Katie's room, where they have been sleeping all week; both eager to don their skinny ties and full-Windsor knots, something new for me but happily I have instructions from Macy's where I buy my lavender shirt.  Madeleine insists on a pocket kerchief and a silver tie-pin which she wears with her khaki trousers, similar to Eitan.  Both kids look fab in a 10 and 11 year old sort of way.

The bride and groom show up and in good form.

Pre Wedding

We visit the Chief Hosa lodge where tomorrow's Big Day shall take place.  Bill, who will conduct the services, assigns us our marching orders. Eitan given the responsibility of ring-bearer which he takes particularly seriously when told, by Bill, that if he loses the rings we can all go home.  Madeleine, for her part, practises her tie knot - she will wear a tie - and I look at her dress-up shoes which are black trainers (she: "but I wear them to school, Dad").  Since the groomsmen in various pastels, Sonnet irons my lavender as the pink and blue shirts taken.

As with anything involving family and family-planning there is plenty of stress but Marcus and Adrianne take it in stride. Or at least out of site. On my wedding day I chose to have a Chinese with Eric and the Best Man instead of a haircut and barber shave AND I failed to produce the wedding license. But, hey, Sonnet and I have a great marriage and laugh all the time. I wish this for Marcus and Adrianne.

Trading Post Trail

Red Rocks

We visit Red Rocks Amphitheatre, known the world over for John Denver (RIP), but also : a mecca for athletes of all ages and abilities .  The amphitheatre, which holds 9,500 spectators, built into the mountain from 1936-41 , rises 60 or so rows making for the perfect criss-cross jog or, for the more serious , straight up-and-downs, stopping occasionally for a few push ups or to catch one's breath. This is 6,340 feet.  I can see downtown Denver about 14 miles away.

When we arrive there is an outdoor yoga class with a couple hundred people getting their morning high on; others stretch in the sun on the wood seats or do balancing poses either shirtless or in colourful form-fitting Lycra (My grandmother would have been aghast).  A man proposes to his girlfriend and she whoops for joy and throws her arms around him while others clap.  Technicians prepare the stage for the annual Easter mass at sunrise tomorrow, Easter Sunday, checking the sound system with Bob Marley tunes. They erect three giant crosses. So trippy.

The earliest rock-and-roll performance at Red Rocks was the Beatles in '64. It was the only concert not sold out on their US-tour.

Rocks

The rocks in the Rocky Mountains, stretching from 3,000 miles from the northernmost British Columbia, Canada, to New Mexico formed before the mountains raised by tectonic forces. The oldest rock is Precambrian metamorphic rock that forms the core of the North American continent. There is also Precambrian sedimentary argillite, dating back to 1.7 billion years ago. During the Paleozoic, western North America lay underneath a shallow sea, which deposited many kilometers of limestone and dolomite.

The Rockies formed from 80 million to 55 million years before, like, Christ during the Laramide orogeny, a time of mountain building in western North America over the Late Cretaceous period. Since then, erosion by water and glaciers have sculpted the mountain range into dramatic valleys and peaks. At the end of the last ice age, humans started to inhabit the mountain range.

The first modern-day explorers,  Sir Alexander MacKenzie (a Brit) then Lewis and Clark, searched for minerals and furs , which drove the initial economic exploitation of the mountains.  Today it is hydraulic fracking. CO Governor John Hickenlooper, a geologist, of the persuasion : "Drill, baby, drill." (source: Rocky Mountain National Park)

"A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. "
--Margaret Mead, on a trailhead plaque entering preserved Elks Meadows

An Unfinished Story

I ask (demand) Madeleine write a story.

" Once there was a young boy called Tom.  His parents were very rich, though they never spent time with him.  They both had very good jobs that paid well.  His father's job was to design buildings.  He, for example, designed the Empire State Building.  Tom's mother made movies and won an Oscar award.

One dull, grey, day Tom was walking down a long winding road when, suddenly, the whole world seemed to flip upside down.

When the world stopped spinning, Tom opened his eyes and gasped.  He was no longer in Little Hangleton (his boring village) but he was in the swampy marshes of Africa!

Suddenly a figure came swooping from the sky on a vine.  He landed in front of Tom and Tom realised that this thing was half monkey, half human.  He had broad shoulders and long arms that reached past his knees.  He had a rough New York accent.  Tom shrank away revolted.  "Please, don't be revolted by my appearance. It was an accident in the lab." Sighed the monkey man.
"

(Presumably) to be continued . .. .

Denver Art Museum

The Avalanche

The wedding party assembles from Denver, Portland, Buffalo, Montana, Montrose, Vermont, Manchester (UK), London and, of course, Alaska.  Dinner, drinks and hockey.

Eitan catches me and Sonnet kissing: "Ew, gross! Can't you stop doing that?"
Me: "You know, Eitan, it is our love that made you."
Eitan: "But do you have to do it in front of me? "

Sonnet: "I am going to get gas - do you want to keep me company ?"
Eitan: "Ha ha ha ha ! You said gas!"

Following morning wiginess and a stand-off over exercise activities, Eitan agrees to execute a non-sugar contract, which I own during our trip:

"I will not ask for, nor receive, junk food* on the holiday to Colorado 2012.

*Junk food=candy bars, sugary snacks and ice cream."

El Rancho

Katie and Eitan occupy themselves at dinner.

El Rancho has been serving the Eastern Slope since '48, or "longer than you have been alive" Stan points out to Sonnet, having been to El Rancho long before Sonnet has been alive. The restaurant a classic steak and burger joint (note to Justin: hand-to-mouth) but it is the martinis that stand out - and why not, since we are near the Interstate with its 6% gradients from the mountains ? I can think of no better way to cruise into Denver.  Marcelle (who arrived Tuesday) and I agree: they go down nice.

We celebrate Moe's 76 birthday : the kids spend the day preparing presents . From Eitan, a hand-written story and origami flower poster; and Madeleine: a landscape painting of the mountains. Here are some things that happened in April 1936, the year Moe is born:

April 3 - Bruno Richard Hauptmann, convicted of kidnapping and killing Charles Lindbergh III, executed New Jersey

April 5 - A tornado hits Tupelo,Mississippi, killing 216 and injuring over 700 (fourth deadliest in US history)

April 11- The first Butlins holiday camp, in Skewness, NY, is officially opened by Amy Johnson from Hull, the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia.

April 19 - The 1936-39 Arab revolt in Palestine against the British Government and opposition to Jewish immigration begins.