Well, the city of Palo Alto, home of Steve Jobs, the Google Guys, and all things tech – – basically the center of the technological universe – – can’t seem to keep its power on. Once again, we are plunged into total darkness. My family, including the dogs, is currently huddled around our fireplace, the only source of warmth in the house. It’s actually kind of a sweet moment.
Perhaps it’s hazardous to posit anything before the opening bell (UPDATE: SEE BELOW!), but as of this pre-dawn, pitch-black moment in Palo Alto, the entire Goldilocks rally from last Friday’s QE4-powered jobs report has been blown to smithereens.
Hello from the “Bring Me My Coffee” shop at the Vieux Port in Marseilles. I have spent the entire week in the south of France, and having never been here, have some fresh impressions to share.
These aren’t in any particular order, and in order to preserve the bullet points, I’m putting a few images beneath this list. So voila:
(more…)Many years ago, when I was in high school, I made an odd goal for myself: that every moment of my life, when viewed in retrospect, would be an embarrassment to me. Hey, so far, so good! No, seriously. That’s what I told myself. The reason was because, in my view, if I was more or less on a general path of improvement through my life, I should be able to look in the rear-view mirror and shake my head at the Tim I saw behind me.
Although I hardly view the shortcomings of my past, which are legion, with any kind of delight or achievement, I was reminded of this peculiar adolescent pact because of something I realized about myself which I’ve had wrong my entire life.
(more…)As a resident of the fair city of Palo Alto, California, I have watched with a combination of bemusement and dismay as real estate prices have, over the past three years, reversed course. Mostly, however, I feel a sense of relief that we still have proof that trees do not, as the saying goes, grow to the sky. Although in the case of stocks, such as AAPL below, this has yet to be demonstrated.
