The Sale of a Lifetime

I check out random finance books that I find in the finance section of my library. This book is all gloom and doom. The author tracks demographics and historical trends. He is also really good at selling his financial advice. He says the stock and real estate markets are going to collapse any day now. I completely agree with this especially if you look at the market from this guy's - a member of the baby boom generation -- point of view.  Our markets sit on air because we believe they float. As soon as we lose that faith, poof!

However, I started this other book called Plutocrats. A (relatively) small number of people are buying stocks and real estate. Monaco has always been a wealthy country because people with money like to go there. So maybe this small number of people can hold up this bubble by continuing their weird pyramid scheme games? Or maybe it just doesn't matter that wages are flat in the US because other countries' economies are growing and so then grows the profits of the US based but multinational companies. Either way, the US is going the way of Mexico where the bulk of the citizens live in poverty with no hope of a living wage.

Back to the Sale book. He has $0 in the stock market. He puts his money in US treasury bonds and other safe investments and waits for the storm.

All the Light We Cannot See

This is one of those books that inspires people to clutch their chest when they talk about it.  Everyone says it's great. It was on the bestseller list for almost 3 years. But, for some reason, I could not get into it. I started it a year ago and kept putting it down. I am starting to wonder about my attention span. In the past year, I've started Hamilton by Ron Chernow, The Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, and My Religion by Leo Tolstoy. I haven't finished any of them. They are all good, interesting books. I don't know if My Religion is popular but the other two books are loved.

Once I realized I am not finishing anything, I committed. All the Light We Cannot See is a great story. I often feel like we are living in unstable times but they are very calm compared to World War II, especially if you lived in Europe. It's hard to imagine that so recently Europe was a war zone, a truly hellish place.

In spite of the very sad theme, this is a hopeful book.

A Man Called Ove

First, I saw the movie based on this book. Then I listened to the book twice. While the plot is about a 59 year old man who is trying to kill himself, it somehow manages to be an uplifting book about how every person is worthy of love.  Ove will probably remind everyone of their dad (in a good way). Originally published in Swedish, it has sold over a million copies in 40 languages. There is something universally good about this book.

Never Split the Difference

Like Being Mortal and Naked Economics, I think this book should be required reading for all adults. The author had a career as a hostage negotiator in the FBI. What surprised me most about his insights is that the same skills required for effective negotiation are also taught by Buddhists who find salvation from suffering in the present moment. Being present is not simple and neither is negotiation but it's interesting that requirements for both overlap.

Great and terrible anecdotes abound.

The Power

One day, young women all around the world become physically stronger than men. This power eventually spreads to all women. The premise of the book ( I think ) is that women's oppression is founded in men's physical strength so what happens once that is reversed?

Bad things.

Somehow I thought women would be more noble and compassionate when they held all the power. Spoiler: they are not.

The book won the Bailey's Prize for Women's Fiction (British award) and when reviewed by the Washington Post, it was called "our era's Handmaid's Tale." I wondered if the author's intention was not to show what women would do if they were more powerful but rather to ask us to view the actions of men through female characters.

I found myself very disgusted with various characters but when I took a step back, these women are just doing what men in power do every day. All that time. Since the beginning of time.

Worth the read.

Five Children and It

I picked up this book for Sonia at a small book store in Rotorua, New Zealand.  We needed something to read on our trip. The book was written over 100 years ago by a famous British author I had never heard of. The book was blurbed by Neil Gaiman and that sold it.

It's a story about a family of kids who meet a Sammy-add (sand fairy). The sand fairy will grant them one wish a day. Every time they make a wish, their lives go terribly awry. Every wish has negative and serious consequences. Each chapter is a new crazy adventure. I like kids' books that speak to their audience like they are capable thinkers.

Sonia thought it was an "adventurous book where you never knew what was going to happen next."

Heading home

On of our last days in Sydney, we visited the Australia museum -- a kind of natural history museum and the oldest museum in the country. Since the first people to arrive in Australia were the Aborigines (as they are now called) there were lots of exhibits around their way of life, relics, and survival techniques. Like the first people to arrive in North America, the Aborigines were treated terribly by the Europeans who traveled the world killing the native people, destroying their cultures then claiming the land. People my age in Australia were not taught that history (as I wasn't) but Australian children are now taught what actually happened (lessons my children are also learning).

There is one really big difference between the way our governments have dealt with this history.

9 years ago, the Australian government apologized for the horrible treatment of these people.  Today, every public ceremony is started by giving thanks to their native people. I am sure there is a German word to describe laughing from despair .. laughing because of the impossibility of a thing due to a lack of a virtue. Humility is not part of the American character. My culture has many great traits but I would never describe our culture as humble. We don't do humble. I cannot even imagine the American government apologizing for pain it has caused other peoples.

So I left Australia not really understanding them. Beautiful place though.

We left for Honolulu in the evening. Because I somehow ended up buying premium economy seats on Air New Zealand ( I bought the cheapest ticket possible.. I thought), our seats had foot rests that you could raise to be level with the seat. Sonia and I could lay down because no one sat next to us in the row. However, Sonia took up all the space.

notice the "cuddle belt" -- that's the Air New Zealand name for the seatbelt two people must wear while lying down.

After leaving Australia late afternoon Christmas day, we arrived in Honolulu at 6am Christmas morning.

The kids only slept a few hours and we slept none. So we were all tired. We went to a grocery store for food (Thank you Safeway for being open on Christmas day as everything else here was closed). We drove to the North Shore and hung out at Shark's cove waiting for night to come so we could go to bed.

I was too tired to take pictures so here is one from the web. Shark's cove. You can't drown here.

Ryan did not make it until night to fall asleep.


We vowed to stay awake until 8pm so no one would wake up at 3. Turned out this was not a problem as Ryan and I woke up at 830 the next morning (12 hours of sleep) and the kids woke up at 10 (14 hours). I did not know I was capable of sleeping for that much time.

The next day was cloudy so we headed to the Dole plantation nearby. You learn a bit about the history of Dole in Hawaii. They grow pineapples, coffee, chocolate, bananas, and sugar. Mostly this plantation exists to sell tourists shit they do not need. Still, we had fun on their little train.

The weather cleared up and we went to Matsumoto's famous shaved ice place.

They've been in business since 1951 so we are willing to wait in a really long line for shaved ice.

Today, Ryan surfed waves that were too dangerous for anyone else to go into. The beaches around the north shore are pretty dangerous for kids because the waves are so big. We went to a lagoon and rented a stand-up paddle board. We wandered around .. saw some turtles .. watched the sun set.

We'll go home tomorrow. I am so grateful for this trip. It's really been great fun for all of us.