Author: Sam

Abalone Season Opening Day

Jerry and Paul took me out to one of their secret abalone spots north of Jenner yesterday for abalone season opening day.  Even though the […]

Dear A.I.G., I Quit!

The following is a letter sent on Tuesday by Jake DeSantis, an executive vice president of the American International Group’s financial products unit, to Edward […]

How Starbucks Saved My Life

How Starbucks Saved My Life, Michael Gates Gill This one is a bit of a feelgood tale, the story of a high-flying advertising executive born […]

Escape

Escape, Carolyn Jessop I read Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven a few years ago and was absolutely dumbstruck by the existence and far-reaching […]

JPMorgan Earns $5B Derivatives Profit

By Matthew Leising and Elizabeth Hester JPMorgan Chase & Co. managed to generate $5 billion in profit during the worst year in Wall Street history […]

The Melting Pot

The Bodessis took us out to dinner on Saturday night to celebrate Mrs. V’s 30th; after our fondue experience on our recent trip to Banff we […]

Sick

Sick, Jonathan Cohn I was browsing around The Book Passage in Corte Madera with a Christmas gift voucher from my mum when I saw this […]

Banff and Lake Louise

We spent the last week in Banff in Alberta, Canada to celebrate Greg’s 60th birthday as well as Mrs. V’s 30th.  We split our time […]

Gang Leader For A Day

Gang Leader For A Day, Sudhir Venkatesh Whilst studying for his PhD. in sociology at the University of Chicago, Sudhir Venkateshchose to take a slightly […]

Three Cups Of Tea

Three Cups Of Tea, Greg Mortensen Finding himself stranded and close to death after an attempted summit of K2 in the Karakoram range of the […]

Greg’s 60th Birthday

We took Friday off to head up to the cabin to celebrate Greg’s 60th birthday with him; we didn’t expect to be greeted with close […]

Mexican Central Bank Currency Intervention

Since the events toward the end of last summer emerging market currencies have been taking an absolute beating.  Mexico, Brazil, Hungary, you name it…  The […]

Mountain Biking Control Check

I learned a little lesson today, the hard way.  I learned that it’s not a good idea to lead a very competent mountain biker down […]