Ted’s Head was fried last week. After a 22 hour plane ride from South Africa and a bunch of time zone changes my fragile brain needed awhile to get back into equilibrium. I had hoped to revel you all with tales of wild animals and deep philosophical insights I had gleaned from the African continent. I was incredibly moved by so many things but my local Trader Joe’s was fresh out of locusts and honey and Brooks Brothers no longer sells loin cloths….and also a thing called Paris occurred.

One of my title’s for this week’s missive was going to be “Reality Sucks”….and sometimes it does. We all have our cave of some sort. We may roam our estates, find a niche at that perfect little cafe or just curl up and veg out in front of the TV for about nine straight hours of football. We have gotten good at avoiding conflict or bad news. We live in a fantasy world. I am not trying to burst bubbles but we have developed this great facility to explain away things.

The Irish have a great saying about Uncle Joe who arrives shit faced for the family celebration of one sort or another. He slurs his words, becomes argumentative at the table and then either falls over a chair or hurls on the brand new living room rug. The mother or wife looks on forlornly at the debacle and announces in a soft voice,”You know, he has the weakness.” Code words for we know there is a problem but we are not going to address it.
ISIL’s massacre was as wanton and heartless as you can get. I found myself agreeing with Hollande for a change as he put his French savoir faire aside and declared war with righteous indignation. Although I hate war it was appropriate. I found myself cursing out Obama for saying hours earlier how we had the zealots contained. Just like when he had called them the Junior Varsity and Bush had proclaimed triumphantly, “Mission Accomplished”so many years earlier. Arrogance or ignorance? Name your poison. Just SHUT UP!

We live in Fantasyland whether we shop on Rodeo Drive or Walmart.We buy stuff for the sake of stuff. Our kids are spoiled rotten. We dream of more and more wealth and riches when what we have already goes beyond the pale. I am not trying to talk down the commonweal but man couldn’t we be a little more tasteful about it?

In South Africa I watched people dealing with life straight on. Funny how 25% unemployment, HIV/AIDS and living in a cardboard container in a township can do that to you. Walk 5 miles each way to school and sometimes you can’t study because there is no electricity. Just a ride means so much. Forget about whether or not it is an ox cart or truck. BMW, Mercedes? Are you kidding? My first Monday back I opened the Wall Street Journal to an ad about privately leased jets. They were going to redo all their fleet by some famous designer to give you the ultimate in luxury. As if the non hassled ride was not enough?
Look at where we are today. As a country we have to address illegal immigration, tax reform, the deficit, entitlements and foreign policy. We have to meet end of life head on and realize that we can’t afford to give people an extra three months of lousy quality of life for $250,000. We have to address our addictions for food, booze and or drugs and not rely on some sort of rehab or pill to bail us out. We always think it is the other guy to blame but if we are honest we see it in our own lives every day.
In days gone by we used to identify in our cities by a neighborhood or a parish. Then we went beyond to a state or region. Soon it was by country and then a hemisphere. Sorry kids but today we are a world. Jet travel and the internet have made us one. You may not think Syria affects you but it does. Warfare begets refugees that wind up somewhere. I can play it cool and say not in my backyard but that creates a whole new set of problems. Globally there are vast numbers of unemployed 16-25 year olds. They have no jobs and no hope. All of a sudden 5 seconds of recognition as a suicide bomber doesn’t look so bad. You think it is an exaggeration to say it involves all of us. Think again.

I don’t want to spoil the party or rain on the parade but yes, reality does suck. I want to have as much fun as the next person but this horrible thing called pragmatism keeps jumping in the way. The crazy thing is I am not campaigning for total withdrawal nor absolute sobriety. I am talking about a sense of propriety and yes civility. We are going to have terrorists. They are fact of life and we are easy prey because of our shallowness in understanding and dealing with today’s problems. Dunno doesn’t cut it anymore.

In these presidential debates, however laborious they are, there are answers. Not from one side or the other but both.It is not an either or but all of us collaborating and yes giving up some our treasured goals and sacred cows. We all have the weakness. We better get working on getting rid of it…before it is too late.

As always,
Ted The Great

Factoids:

The number of followers of ISIS range between 30-100,000. They are trying to hold the 7 billion or so inhabitants of the world hostage and doing a fair job of it. That’s about one creep for every 700,000 of us. Terror thrives on fear. How comfortable do you feel today? This is the only factoid we need.

Posted from St Ives,Cornwall, UK

I am sitting in an alcove with huge windows overlooking the Atlantic Ocean below. Our hotel is a Victorian built in 18 0r 19 something and I see why people seek respite here. It is early morning and I can espy small craft bobbing on their tethers and the plaintiff cry of the gulls provides a gentle wake up to the day.

We have been visiting my son and his family in Wimbledon which beyond grass courts is a suburb of London so to speak. They have made quite a transition since moving there nine months ago. Scott has business trips to Amsterdam and Copenhagen this week and the boys speak of the Czech Republic, Germany and France as if they were neighboring states and not sovereign nations. Dionne is trying to figure out how to make the sun shine more than a few days a week. All is well.

As they say about fish and family they begin to smell after three days so we made a side trip to Cornwall. We survived my driving from the right side and found our way out of London. We made a wrong turn right out of the rental agency and after wandering about we passed the same enterprise we had just pulled out of. Kathy told me she hated me and let out a raft of expletives as I begged for directions. I told her if it suited here she could reside in the trunk for the duration. The view wouldn’t be quite so expansive but she could be spared my driving idiosyncrasies. After 44 years of marriage we have been through worse.

Driving along the A3 you want to compare the terrain to ones you know better. We noted at various points we could have been in New Hampshire, Long Island, Ireland and France. We made our way through dual carriageways, roundabouts and narrow country lanes to reach our haven. It really is a little bit of heaven. We had travelled about 250 miles and you can see why people make the trek.

Dinner was lovely as they say but the couple next to us found solace in their cell phones rather than each other’s company. It was quite startling form both a technological as well as personal view. Has it really come to this? Kathy and I talked for who knows how long in front of the fire after dinner. About kids, us, life et al. Nice way to spend a day especially since she was talking to me once again.

I was up early as is my want. French pressed coffee was served by a wonderful chap named Mark. I finally found somebody else I the world who was as wound up at 6:00 AM as yours truly. He spoke and as he tested the waters with each sentence he unraveled more and more of his life. A bit of a vagabond he loved the hotel business. He knew it was low pay and long hours but it was his calling.

He was divorced with a six year old son who lived with his mum just across the bay. He had decent relationship with his former spouse and he got his son every other weekend. They camped on the beach and fell asleep in arctic sleeping bags listening to the rolling surf. He said he had found tranquility in the simple life by the sea and you knew he was speaking from the heart. It was the way he should be and I wished I could bottle what he had and give it to the world.

We signed up for a walking tour of this seaside hamlet and Tony Farrell appeared in front of the Guild Hall at 11:00 AM sharp.
A retired professor of archaeology, his family had settled here over 150 years ago. He was a wealth of knowledge as well as perspective. It was just Kathy and I and he quickly departed from script and went into far more detail than the average excursion. This was not only his home but his heritage. We went to a fish lodge with aged and curling photographs that showed the tranquil bay in all its fury. As we passed the volunteer lifeboat rescue group he told of friends who had been lost trying to save a drowning sailor. They had sung in the choir next to him and now they were gone. It wasn’t a sadness but an acceptance of life as it is. Wow.

We drifted to politics which was appropriate in that the Brits are electing a new Parliament in ten days. He was as liberal as can be but not because of academia. For centuries this area had been a center for mining tin and fishing. These were people who worked with their hands and not necessarily their heads. They had given their lives to support family in a basic way in their small homes by the sea. Everyone supported each other and it was community in every sense of the word. He was a Labourite.

As time marched on, the trip from London took a few hours and not the several days of old. The wealthy had come and seen a chance for profit in the land. They bought up the structures that housed the help and made them grand. Prices shot up and the next generation of miners and seafarers were locked out. He rued the fact that his kids couldn’t afford to live here. He was put out that the mining and fishing had long gone and hospitality with its low wages was all that was left. He seemed to bristle at the fact these second homes were inhabited only three or four weeks of the year. He dreamed of a new Cornwall that could attract R and D or technology but he and I knew that probably could never be.

Now I do not deny my capitalist roots but it does give one pause. I am sitting here peering out at the land across the bay which is verdant and simple. I know someday it will be dotted with condos of all sorts of modernistic interpretation. Perhaps the wonderful Victorians that occupy the palisade behind me will be too dated for salvation. It cost a lot less to scrape and build anew you know. For now I will revel in finding this wonderful place and meeting the Marks and Tony’s of the world. I need that grounding. I hope they can stay.

As always
Ted The Great.

Factoids:

Wimbeldon started in the late 1800’s as a croquet club. There are 375 full time members and the only way you get in is to be invited. Of course someone has to die to move up on the list.

You get a ticket by lottery. All tickets cost the same and you could get a courtside seat or one up in nose bleed country. It is the luck of the draw. The winner of the Gentlemen’s singles at The Championships receives a gold trophy inscribed with the words: “The All England Lawn Tennis Club Single Handed Champion of the World”.

Off the Cornwall coast there are some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. During WWII, U Boat#48 sank over forty ships in these waters. Incredibly it was sunk by its own designs. After torpedoing a freighter there were steam engines being transported on the deck of the prey. One blew into the air and landing on the conning tower sending the sub to the bottom of the sea with all hands aboard being lost. At least that is how the story goes according to local lore.

I had a conversation with my eight year old grandson, Anders. He is the most easy going kid imaginable. He seemed to be deep in thought and I asked him what he was thinking about? “Life “ was his reply. Getting ready for some deep conversation, I asked, “What about life?” He said,”playing and stuff.” His answer so honest, simplistic but most of all positive was beyond refreshing.

I like to think. I enjoy just taking a concept and letting it rip so to speak. I do research to get my juices flowing and then try to make sense of it all. Many of you might see this as foolish or even worse the mark of a rapidly aging man. Others will just brush it aside and say you have more important things to do. I am just too busy. Good for you.

But we all think thousands of times a day. Unfortunately a lot of it is negative or stressful. Kathy and I are flying to London on Wednesday to see our son Scott and his family. Some of you might point out the possibility of a bomb or terrorism of some sort on our sojourn. Could be on the plane or in the heart of Piccadilly. Ted, did you see what happened on that flight from Barcelona? Who knows who is behind the wheel?

Parents get whacko about their kids. Will my three year old get into Harvard? How can I best prepare him or her in these formative years? I guess the only way they are going to make it to the varsity sports team is if we send them to two week summer camp and then intensive personal training when they get home. Are they pretty or handsome enough? Got to restrict their diet and maybe even a nose job. Walk home from school or the store alone? Are you nuts? Think of all the BAD things that can happen?

I know a bunch of parents who obsess about their older kids. Sure I love my offspring but it is their life to succeed or fail and it doesn’t require my worrying during every waking hour. Are they a happy couple? Do they have enough money? Do they want a bigger house? Maybe I should help them. The apron strings get longer and longer instead of shorter as time marches on. How could they ever survive on their own?

The market, our health, our retirement accounts, our legacy to pass on, occupy an inordinate amount of that oh so precious time every day. The Greek debt, easing in Europe and the impending rise of China both financially and militarily? How can you just sit there TTG, our preeminent position in the world is crumbling. This is getting depressing….and yet we do it.

We seem to obsess on things gone wrong in the past. I am reading a book on our mini depression of 2008. It wants to let Wall Street off the hook and lay blame on Barney and Bill or HUD.They might be right. Last night there was a news segment on the BP spill five years later replaying the ecological disasters. Did any of us forget about either of these events? Sure there is a ton of blame to go around and yes as in any debacle some will get away scott free but do we have to regurgitate and relive them again? It is almost like we keep replaying these disasters time and again hoping the result will turn out differently.

Sure things bother and maybe even scare me but those are emotions I can control. There are very few cases where I really can have any control over an event. What I have tried to do is concentrate and take ownership of just those things around me where I can have an effect. The nuclear pact with Iran. The price of oil. The stock markets. Do you think little old me or you can really change the course of events? Look at poverty or waste in your town or city not the 50 states. Improve your neighborhood not the whole state. Make it manageable but do it.

David Brooks has a new book out, “The Road to Character”. It’s not so much the writing of the book as his thought processes that intrigue me. He and Charlie Rose had the quintessential interview. They both fed off one another and in the end it was a big name personality laid bare. No teleprompter or script. Just a young man in the process of sorting out so many things and letting us watch. Can you imagine if this were the norm rather than the rarity? Where politicians, corporate giants, big name doctors and lawyers just let us see who they really are? Fascinating stuff.

To get into this yourself you have to take a time out. Not so easy in today’s world. Separate yourself from the day to day to just take stock and get inside you. You look at morality in your life and the world around you. You get spiritual in not so much a religious sense but more of a divorce from that which is physical.How do you really view your life and that around you? Its sheer ambiguity should keep you on the edge of your seat.

I am not Pollyanna. I would like to describe myself as a pragmatic optimist. I know what is good and bad. Right and wrong. I actually am egotistical enough to think I have solutions to many of the problems that plague us. I am sure you do too but what are the chances of you and I having any impact on immigration, farm subsidies or the deficit in the short run.

Right now I could not be in a better place. No I did not win the lottery but I have decent idea what makes my world tick. I have enough savvy to accent the positive and eliminate the negative. Not rocket science. That’s what’s on my mind. What’s on yours?

As always
Ted the Great

Factoids:

The interview with David and Charlie can be found on charlierose.com. Go to the April 13th show and look under David Brooks, the 33 minute interview.

In the political arena over 30 million Americans are unhappy with the outcome every four years. They will obsess and get nuts for four years seizing every opportunity at the club,local bar and business meetings to express their ill will. How much of their precious time is wasted on talk, emails and cursing the TV. What if all that energy was put to use for something good? Just 30 minutes a day bitching comes out to 43,800 hours until the next election cycle. Okay you only do it 10 minutes per day. That’s only 14,600 hours!

Thesaurus:
Bad Feeling….hatred, resentment, bad vibes, repugnance, choler
Anxiety…angst,dread,uncertainty, the creeps, foreboding
Yuck!

In the final analysis there is no way to sugar coat. The Broncos and by association their fans got the crap kicked out of them. It has been a long time if ever that a group has failed so miserably on the field of battle in front of 111 million people. Damage control? Impossible. We got beat every which way but loose. We stink. There, I feel better already.

I was reading an article a friend sent me on vulnerability and life. This was days before the game so don’t think I am being cheesy. The bottom line was twofold. First off, life is a battle or conflict. The streets are mean and sooner or later you are going to hurt or be hurt. You are exposed to the elements of some sort. As parents or guardians we try to shield our loved ones from the harsh realities of life. But in essence that is the beauty of life. You are going to win and you are going to lose.

Secondly as we grow older and fend for ourselves we become less human. We try to fabricate some crazy facade either by conduct or trappings. We put on airs. We have bravado. We construct a plan of life that is neither worthwhile nor genuine. We hide the real us. We are so afraid to be the true McCoy. We do not think about who we really are but who we think we should be. We are petrified that if we are open and yes vulnerable then nobody would love us. Interesting stuff.

We just had new bookcases put in. We have to fill them with something so I have gone to the trophy locker. Okay Kath, both our trophy lockers. As I put them up I noticed there were some wins and also a number of runner up silver pieces. At the time I am sure I thought it was the end of the world that I had lost. Choke artist. Bum. Never once did I think that I had come a long way and beaten a lot of people just to get to the finals.

Just by entering the tourney I was making myself vulnerable. But in the end I worried about what people would think if I wound up a loser. The sun got in my eyes. Someone yelled at the top of my backswing. Otherwise of course I would have prevailed. Dream on TTG.

Recently I have been involved in a tough situation. A close friend asked me to help out a fellow in distress. Hopefully I am not Simon Lagree but I had been down this particular roadway more than once in the past. I said no and was emphatic. I felt and still do that the person had to learn to stand on their own two feet. Sure it was going to be tough going but if not now, when. As I said, reality sucks. I may have lost a friend but it had to be.

The ramifications are considerable. We have just had a scandal relating to Air Force personnel who man the missile silos that are the last stop between us and Armageddon. They cheated on proficiency exams. The reasoning went from everyone was doing it to it was a boring and tedious job with no clear path to advancement. Ergo I can cheat. Excuse me?

There was a young man in Texas who was drunk and killed four people with his pickup truck. He got off with probation and no jail time after pleading not guilty.  A psychologist called as an expert defense witness said the boy suffered from “affluenza,” growing up in a house where the parents were preoccupied with arguments that led to a divorce.The father “does not have relationships, he takes hostages,”  and the mother was indulgent. “Her mantra was that if it feels good, do it” . The upshot of it all was that of course he was unable to discern between right and wrong. The judge agreed and the young man is doing rehab at a posh recovery center in California. I can’t make this stuff up.

The saddest part of all this is that there is a certain nobility to striving. If you haven’t done it then you don’t know. There are a myriad of lessons to be learned in defeat. Most of all there is a crazy rush when you are authentic and vulnerable. I guess when I put stuff down on paper it is the case. I try not to take myself too seriously but I try my best to be real. I try to let it hang out because it feels good to be me.

A couple of weeks ago Robert Gates came out with his book detailing his time as Secretary of Defense. I watched an hour long interview with Charlie Rose and I would recommend you looking it up. This guy spoke from the heart and pulled no punches. He was both critical and laudatory. Someone claimed it was therapy for him to get things off his chest. Others bespoke his breaking the rules in a “tell all” book so soon after leaving his post. I saw someone incredibly human who did not measure his responses and spoke from the heart. His disdain for politics and love of the men who served under him bring praises not criticism from me.

Today the Broncos clean out their lockers. The memories of this season will be bittersweet. But it goes beyond a football game. On the front page of the Post this morning there was article and poignant picture of a funeral for a county patrolman. He was killed on his motorcycle by an 84 year old who was passing a car after crossing a double white line. That’s where reality really sucks. The Broncos and your life? Live it, get over it and move on.

As always

Ted The Great

Factoids:

Choking is a true psychological phenomenon. Professionals and amateurs alike have performed their golf swing thousands of time. But in competition the mind gets in overdrive. They miss a three foot putt. There are actual chemical reactions but the sum total is you think too much. You worry about the audience and how it will react. You worry about letting people down including yourself. You begin to have self doubt no matter how talented you are.

The sad and tragic death of Philip Seymour Hoffman points out an incredible divergence from who he was and who he thought he should be. This insistence on trying to supersede reality is soothed by drugs, sex, alcohol and food addictions. This is especially true among the young today. We accept and encourage this behavior although it truly is unreal.

Justice favors the wealthy and the famous. You see it time after time. Justin Bieber if he was Manuel Garcia would have been deported and put on the next flight to Honduras. If you can afford $600 an hour lawyers and expert testimony you can probably have your way in our courts system. This is not an indictment but an observation on our justice system. It is “blind” but in a different sense of the word.

When you work in hospice hope is not an everyday word. There is a resignation but also a beauty to the process that life plays itself out. I am an incredibly optimistic person so I find it somewhat unusual that I like what I do. Actually it helps me pepper my positive vibes with a dose of pragmatism. It keeps me in line.

I have been thinking a lot about this hope thing. There was a guy from Hope, Arkansas but if you know me that is not where I am going. Also I and a lot of other people got caught up in the Hope and Change thing but that was a nasty letdown. But for so many of us hope is the thing that keeps you going. Young,old. Rich,poor. It goes beyond winning the Powerball. It is an absolute belief things can get better.

In football if you are from Cleveland, Houston or even New York it has to get better. Too many baseball seasons seem shot by the Fourth of July both in Denver and Chicago. But what I am talking about goes well beyond national pastimes. It is sometimes the stark realization if you are not born on the right side of the tracks or in the right town that you are never going to get out. Ouch.

I heard on the radio the other day a woman in Chicago speaking about her losses. She had four sons, the oldest of which made it to 32 years old. Each and every one of them had been gunned down on the mean streets. It’s ironic on New Year’s Day as a city Denver mourned a beautiful 18 year old who had been gunned down in school. She had such a wonderful future as an equestrian who competed at our yearly Stock Show. What sort of a future did those boys have? Ooops, I forgot. Their deaths were a logical outcome not a tragedy.

Now pragmatism tells me this is the way life is. If you can’t escape the urban bowels so be it. There are winners and losers in every game. Survival of the fittest. While a convenient theory the soulful me asks is this civil ? Does compassion fly in the face of  survivalism? Sorry, but I can’t just say tough shit. It is not a bleeding heart liberalism that grabs me but a realization that I am a part of humanity. If not I or maybe all of us have a much larger problem.

There are stories every day of people looking for work. Now I know there are malingerers and nee’r do wells. They play the system and work the angles. And trust me they really piss me off. But there is also some poor devil who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was a steady Eddie who no longer was relevant. Something went wrong for the company or he was replaced by some sort of machine. We can look the other way and say there but for the grace of God go I. Lately the realist and the soft hearted slob in me don’t collide but meet at a crossroads.

Hope is the thing that helps us move forward. It keeps us churning and burning and coming up to bat although we have been doing nothing but striking out. It says make one more call or knock on one more door. I was building houses in the early 80’s in the middle of 15% mortgage rates. Housing starts were down to multi year lows at 900,000. I thought I don’t need 900,000 but just 4 or 5. Somebody had to be buying. And it worked. Yet I have a scary feeling today is different.

I am a capitalist as most of you are. It’s a free country and the world is your oyster. I also have a feeling the economic theory that has served us so well is in danger of running amok. I had a vision of this well oiled machine that keeps churning out products at a fair profit. Take care of people and they will take care of you. But we have a fly in the ointment and it is called greed. In an effort to wring every last dollar out of the process we have optimized and marginalized. Management has cut to the bone and put the cash in the bank. Looks good on the balance sheet but a little on the  short side I fear when it comes to innovation and invention.

As consumers we have done the same. In searching out the cheapest price we have put so many mom and pops out of business. What goes around comes around. The big boxes and bricks and mortar are now being beaten by the likes of Amazon. I love progress but it really does have its problems. Maybe the madness blows up in a fierce conflagration and we just start over again? I dunno.

My solution is this. First is the job market. People have to retrain and relocate. Go where the jobs are. If it means leaving family and friends, you gotta go. Try something different. Be a tradesman. Call a plumber or an electrician or mechanic. See how long it takes to get an appointment or bid? There’s demand.  Sorry but the law degree or MBA does not guarantee success any longer.

This is far reaching. The jobs so many of us used to have are gone. Yes, you heard me. They are no longer. It is a reality that neither we as a people or a government have come to grips with. Worst of all is the fact for a large portion of our populace their standard of living has to change. That is such a bitter pill to absorb but it is more like a truth serum than castor oil. And yes in that moment of sobriety comes another expression of hope.

Secondly, corporations have to put money to work. If they hoard it or just buy back stock it may look good in the quarter but long term it is disastrous. The Supreme Court says corporations are people when it comes to campaign finance. Let’s let them act that way instead of some impersonal resource consuming monolith. As for executive salaries it comes under my definition of obscene wealth. Make money the old fashioned way…earn it, not coin it. Don’t roll your eyes. You know exactly what I am talking about.

Hope is an emotion. It is something in your soul. It is in all of us no mater how desperate our situation. It must be nurtured and respected. But we have to make sure it is there and not just a pipe dream. Hope begets change and innovation and in that prosperity. But we ALL have to be part of it. Not redistributing but sharing. Big difference. Otherwise hope is just an empty promise that can’t be kept. The antonym of hope is despair. I just can’t go there.

As always

Ted The Great

Factoids:

Here in Denver $15-20 per hour jobs are waiting to be filled. We are adding to our light rail system but a combination of a dearth of immigrant labor and people competent in concrete finishing have put us behind.

The unemployment rate in Yuma, AZ is 31%. 700 miles north in Logan,UT it is 4.6%. Bismark,ND, 2.8%. Ditto Sioux Falls, SD. The US Postal Service in Denver is advertising for jobs @$21 per hour. Want ads show jobs for truck drivers, receptionists, bank tellers, technical writers and ramp supervisors fro Southwest Airlines. There are not enough lawyers in Nevada, Wyoming and Alaska. Too many elsewhere but you knew that.

A 2011 study by the CBO found that the top earning 1 percent of households increased their income by about 275% after federal taxes and income transfers over a period between 1979 and 2007, compared to a gain of just under 40% for the 60 percent in the middle of America’s income distribution. Since then most of the growth is going to an extraordinarily small share of the population: 95% of the gains from the recovery have gone to the richest 1% of people. This may be good for them but really bad fro the rest. That’s not Intro toPopulism but Advanced Economics….and I don’t even have an MBA.

 I don’t know if it is really impossible to reach accord or if it is our penchant as Americans to blame the other guy. Don’t fess up. I had no idea. My fault? No way.

 We are not good at taking medicine. We love the good times. We tend to get lost in our own egos. We want to be individuals, but when things go sour we are all screaming for help.

I have been involved in real estate for a long time. When I was selling I looked at everything as a business transaction. I really tried hard to never fall in love with a piece of real estate. It tends, like romance of all sorts, to cloud the mind.

Recently I have been privy to two disasters on this front. One is a fellow that at one time was wealthy. He got hit from all angles. He had a large inventory of properties and unfortunately the liquidation is not finished. But he has faced the music, priced things to sell and is moving on to try to rebuild his life. A brave man.

 On the other hand is a fellow who is a victim at least in his own eyes. Woulda’s, coulda’s, shoulda’s abound. He has not faced the music. He has not made a payment in over three years. He is wallowing in self pity. A sad and tragic man.

We smoke. We drink. We do drugs. We overeat. And then we come to our medical systems to heal us. Didn’t you know that’s my right? You owe me! I want you to do every possible thing you can regardless of the cost.

I am continually confronted with the realization that everything good or bad in my life is the result of a decision I  have made. No one forced me to do anything. If it turned out right I can take credit. If it turned out wrong I have no one else to blame.

I also feel the world owes me nothing. Sure I want good medical care but I feel there are limits. Yes, I would like a roof over my head, but it does not have to be a mansion.

And here comes the real kicker. Nothing is guaranteed. If my way of life and status in the world has to change, so be it. Will it be fun? Maybe in a crazy and uncertain way, yes.

My trip to Hawaii gave me a totally different outlook. We stayed at a condo on the ocean. Next door was the Four Seasons. Probably at two to three times the price. Was the view of the ocean any different? Go next door and a drink was $15. Go a quarter of a mile the other way and Happy Hour had Mai Tais for $5.

The moral is simple. Life is what you make it. Let’s get away from our penchant for bigger, better, faster. It is not a matter of “settling” for less but rather really appreciating what the hell we really have and how good we have it..

No matter what, it is what you and I have done to the world. Not what the world has done to us. The devil didn’t make me do it. It was all me.

As always

Ted The Great

Factoid: The highest mountains in Hawaii are about 12,000 feet. If you realize they they have been created from the floor of the ocean over 13,000 feet below the surface, the mountains are actually higher than Mt. Everest. Moreover all the flora on the islands was brought to the volcanic rock by seeds in the beaks of birds that travelled over 2500 miles from the nearest land mass. Now is that evolution or creation?