I'm a Lucky Man

Every day, I try to repeat that mantra, I’m a lucky man. Not in the sense of winning the lottery, but in the parts that are important to me.

The following was started in July 2012, abandoned and restarted in December.

LEAVING OREGON

Don’t expect anything as entertaining or profound (or profoundly disturbing?) as “Leaving Las Vegas,” but we are in the process of leaving Oregon, and I always have opinions and observations.

Despite the century-topping temperatures in the Plains, I have a deep connection and satisfaction with Nebraska and Kansas City and probably don’t appreciate the current “summer” weather in Portland. The weather is a topic, though, since most of the people that know us have been, or should have been, mighty tired of our complaining. From arrival here the first week of December, and coming back at the first of January, we experienced four days through the middle of May that it didn’t rain. Just gloom when it wasn’t raining. And I have never been this cold, despite living in Fargo. Forty-one degrees and rain is damn cold.

Enough of that.

I think I would be “sixty-eight” if I lived in a lot of countries, Korea for example, where your birth is considered your first birthday. Makes a lot of sense, like the way they tend to structure names and labels. Family names first, given name(s) next. Makes sense. Year first, then month, then day. Makes sense…and it is easy when labeling computer files in that you can have the same name for several files, but keep them in chronological order by just naming them that way. That's the way I file my computer documents, too, with the end being 20121212 for today's date.
 

I am so fortunate that I am able to continue to be challenged and interested in a bunch of projects through my brokerage practice.

Continued December 2012:

We have arrived in Virginia Beach. Right now I am busier than I expected to be, and that is good.

We just purchased tickets for a performance of “The Pines of Rome” by the Virginia Symphony and I will be going to the Van Gogh exhibit in Denver. Need to get back to those things.

A lot has happened in the time since we left Portland, and one of those things is that we have been living out of suitcases, literally, since the end of July. Too long. Hope we can get in a house soon.

On January 1, 2013, I will be 67.5 years old, and as the days pass the value of relationships and the value of friends becomes more and more important to me. The old friends, the ones from Sigma Nu who have been with me for about 50 years now; the correspondent in Brazil who was a high school classmate; the girl who worked with me many years ago and had a baby daughter on my birthday in the early 1980’s.

Speaking of her, I had lost track of her for 15 years. She caught up with me on LinkedIn.

What a life, eh?