After writing ‘Two Of Everything’ a few weeks ago, I’m finding certain things I might even have THREE of between our main Minnesota home & snowbird place in Florida. Three warm jackets, three pairs of sunglasses, and three sizes of suitcases. Then, while I thought those things through, I discovered something I might even need FOUR of … a FOURTH collection of toiletry / shaving … Continue reading Four Of Everything?
We’re on the road this morning to visit my brother and his lovely wife in South Carolina. We’re leaving the Orlando area on the Florida Turnpike, one of the state’s many toll roads. Apparently Florida leads the country with about 720 miles of toll roads. The next 5 are TX, OK, NY, PA, and NJ. this is a bit of a new experience for us … Continue reading Terrific Toll Roads
Our modest experiment in being landlords has ended. Our son – who we were bribing to be our neighbor for the last 3 years – has moved to an apartment in a cool neighborhood of downtown Minneapolis. His new space is much smaller, but in a very slick building close to all of the coffee shops, bars, & restaurants all the hipsters like him like … Continue reading Moving On From Landlording
I’m home visiting Minnesota for a few days and helping my Mom get her taxes pulled together (and our own taxes). It’s funny to be working on this stuff when the headlines are filled with articles talking about cuts to IRS and SSA staff, amid accusations of widespread waste & inefficiency. Here’s our situation. My Mom gets Social Security every month. It always arrives on-time … Continue reading Tax Time Troubles
There was a recent article in the Wall Street Journal talking about how expensive it has gotten to go to Walt Disney World. Friends have been asking me about it since we live a few miles from the World Drive Main Gate and go over there quite a bit. There’s no doubt the price of a trip to Walt Disney World has gone up, but … Continue reading Disney Comparison
My buddy Russ told me that once we bought a place in Florida, we’ll be buying “two of everything”. I thought we could get by with having our Florida vacation place be a little spartan, but it’s not turning out that way. Just one year in, we’ve gotten to the point where I could pretty much go back-and-forth to our home in Minnesota without … Continue reading Two Of Everything
Performance review season was never my favorite time at MegaCorp. We used to call the time of year before reviews “key season” – as colleagues would jockey to hype their accomplishments in front of the boss & each other. Otherwise soft-spoken managers would miraculously show up for routine staff meetings holding a list of “all the amazing things my team got done this past year”. … Continue reading Key Season Crying
Our neighborhood in Florida has a weekly “Investment Club” that I went to this past Friday. There were about 15 people gathered when I got there – in the events ballroom of our clubhouse. We started by talking about our 2025 expectations for the stock market’s growth. After two years of incredible growth (+23% in 2024, +24% in 2023), most people were expecting growth in … Continue reading Investment Club
When you move to a new area, everyone shares with you what the “local treasures” are. In the Southeast, that includes Publix grocery stores. Florida loves Publix. Having worked in the food industry and visited Florida for more than 30 years, we were very familiar with Publix, but hadn’t shopped there too much as “locals”. Now that we’ve been doing that, I’m putting Publix on … Continue reading Bogus Publix BOGOs
It’s hard to sit still watching the tremendous waste & inefficiency being exposed in Washington DC over the last two years. The proceedings are a maddening comedy & disheartening tragedy at the same time. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that a bipartisan Senate Committee was given evidence that as much as $1 trillion on a year are paid out fraudulently by the federal, state, … Continue reading Federal Comedy & Tragedy
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