I’ve been watching, with increasing interest, the catastrophic market decline that has been playing out in antique case goods, furniture, decor, and other related historical items. This category of assets, which had been on a steady, upward climb for nearly thirty years prior to the Great Recession, has been in a free-for-all, nosediving with such violence that the implosion is breathtaking in both scope and severity.
One of the things I’ve most disliked over the past three years since starting our asset management firm is that I’ve had little to no time to show you what is going on in our lives. Entire trips, events, special occasions, holiday celebrations, birthday parties, concerts … things that would have been documented have fallen by the wayside because the time it would take to prepare the photos, write the post, and publish the results required precious daylight (or sleep) I couldn’t spare as we were in the midst of spinning up a highly regulated entity. To us, personally, this meant the momentary absence of a valuable journal of our own life; a chronicling of our experiences that helped keep our timeline in order.
As we celebrated my 37th birthday today, I thought about three questions that Aaron and I have used in managing our lives that help us live better, avoid mistakes, and improve our outcomes. I wanted to share them so they might help you in your own journey.
The masterpiece Middlemarch, a Study of Provincial Life is considered by many literary critics and academics to be the greatest novel written in the history of the English language. A work of historical fiction, the story is set during the years 1829-1832 and follows the lives of the inhabitants of a fictional town, Middlemarch, as threads, both visible and invisible, weave the fate of their their homes, marriages, businesses, fortunes, happiness, and misery together.
So many of our clients, friends, and acquaintances bike, including for pleasure, exercise, and/or commuting to work, and we had grown so accustomed to seeing people on their bikes all the time out here given the near year-round perfect weather, Aaron and I decided that one of these days we were going to visit a nearby bike store in Costa Mesa, California. Yesterday, we finally checked this off our task list and we’re so happy that we did.
Walk into a French café and you might discover a dish called Croque Monsieur, which translates as “Mr. Crunch”. Add a sunny-side up egg on top and it becomes a Croque Madame, or “Mrs. Crunch”, the gender shift occurring because the egg resembles the sort of hat women would frequently wear in a by-gone era. Croque Monsieur and Croque Madame can range from the easy and convenient to the rich and decadent depending on the money, time, and calories you are willing to sacrifice.
One of the benefits of our relocation to the West Coast was going through boxes and containers dating back to early childhood, discovering things that we didn’t realize we had; toys from our nursery, birthday cards from elementary school, choral music from high school and college. This included migrating old computer archives before destroying the physical drives, resulting in large amounts of data we now need to organize and catalog over the coming years as a part-time personal project
We spent our Saturday morning reading and enjoying cinnamon roll French toast at the Oak Grill at the Fashion Island Hotel in Newport Beach.
Politicians, central bankers, and academics around the world are engaging in a conversation that could have massive real-world consequences for both middle class families and retirees; conversations that could result in substantially higher taxes, and/or substantially reduced benefits for entitlement programs such as Social Security, depending upon how the matter is resolved. The average American is not paying attention to this at all. It matters. This is a technical debate that will transfer huge amounts of wealth from various stakeholders depending upon who prevails.
I want to officially thank the people of The Netherlands for one of their greatest contributions to human civilization: the Stroopwafel. How I managed to go 36 years of life without ever experiencing the joy that is this amazing combination of toasted waffle, caramel, cinnamon, and vanilla is beyond me. My Stroopwafel obsession has gotten to the point that Aaron laughs at me because I just can’t help myself. It’s so bad that because I try to limit my daily consumption of sugar, I actually look forward to going to bed just knowing that I can get up and have another Stroopwafel. This is out of control.