It was 2012 on New Year’s Day that I told myself it was time to eat the fear and agoraphobia of wide open water swimming. I’d learnt about that anxiety the hard way, during a leash-break incident on a surf trip to Morocco while somewhat ‘out at sea’ on a reef break. I was dead scared without my board attached to me out in the open ocean, and the long swim in to shore felt edgy…
Andy C. an admired Texan buddy, from Austin, asked me what I'd get up to in London with kids. I polled my UK great mates Richard Swift (Dad to Zach and Josh, 6 and 8), Ruth How (Mum to 10-year old Tillie), and Rick Jones (Dad to a trio from young to teen). Roughly in order of must-dos... Afternoon Tea experiences My favorite, for its elegance, was Browns. But I read about One Aldwych's Charlie & The Chocolate Factory Afternoon Tea (near Piccadilly Circus and Tralgar Sq) and St. Ermin's in Westminister Central London Eye and River Trip, and the new and nearby Sky Garden (free entry) Covent Garden "fun for kids in the daytime with street artists and loads of eateries nearby." Buckingham Palace's Changing Of The Guard…
“espresso and coffee come from the same standard beans, and these beans have two types: Arabica or Robusta. Bia Coffee Robusta beans have higher caffeine levels and a more bitter taste. They're grown in areas with lower altitudes and are more resilient to inclement weather (hence the namesake "Robusta", etymologically robust). Robusta beans produce drip with a rich, creamy consistency.” The two main differences between espresso and coffee are roast and grind. Convergent Coffee explains that even though different types of coffee all share the same bean origins, the beans are specifically crafted with a destination in mind. Therefore, beans destined for the espresso machine are roasted for longer and ground finer, while beans intended for the drip coffee maker…
Dad shares notes on three of our great grandparents that emigrated to the US from Ireland in the late 1800s, early 1900s.
Friday 13th - Monday 16th May Dad and I stayed at Le Meridien, Central Park We spent Friday afternoon at MOMA before going to seeing the Birdland Big Band, early set Friday And then off to Wollensky’s Grill for a shared Porterhouse cut! On Saturday morning, a boat Tour out to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island with former seminarian, then actor, Chris of ExperienceFirst Tours on Trip Advisor On Saturday night, Billy Joel at Madison Square Gardens, the 79th consecutive monthly sold-out show of the Madison Square Garden 'House Band'! On Sunday, new Broadway show Paradise Square, a 2022 Tony nominee about the tight relationship between Black Americans and the arriving immigrant Irish in 1963 during the…
I was asked to speak yesterday to a working session of Impact Capital Managers, a network of private capital fund managers, on the topic of raising money for new investment funds from public pensions - 'capital raising'. The session was moderated by Mike Hokenson of Community Impact Management, and also included Tazia Smith of Closed Loop and Erin Molloy of Rethink Capital Partners. Since 2008, I worked with two carbon market funds ('08 - '12) before joining Equilibrium and working on capital raising for seven real asset investment funds at Equilibrium. Real assets refers to physical, tangible investments, like real estate, land and forest / timber, infrastructure, and natural resource commodities like oil and gas and renewable energy structures. At…
Thought to gather analyses I find on Net Zero and related emissions reductions topics. Think of Net Zero as the atmospheric state in which greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere are balanced by greenhouse gases being removed from the atmosphere, by human actions. Does that make sense? At Net Zero, we're effectively no longer altering the chemical composition of the atmosphere through man-made gaseous additions. Our emission additions are 'netted out' or 'offset' by emissions removals. Basics What's The Difference Between Carbon Neutral and Net Zero - Ecometrica, 2021 I gave a vague answer on the diff between 'Carbon Neutral' and 'Net Zero', and this page helped. Net Zero is the 'whole planet' expression referring to the atmospheric balance in…
Seamus Heaney came up in conversation yesterday, and I remembered that a stunning poem of Heaney's had been read out an Nana's funeral in February 2021. The ritual of Mass was a big party of Sunday for our family growing up, like most Irish families. "I was all hers" beautifully captures the sensation of quiet and a free hour, from not going to Mass for whatever reason. The heaviness of the image Heaney is creating is captured in the image of potato peelings falling "one by one" and the metaphor of solder "weeping" off the soldering iron. An odd jumble of visual connections that we're thrown into by Healey, before the levity of how refreshing little splashes of water are…
Found myself tapping out my thoughts on this, on LinkedIn today. I commented: I remember reading in the Economist that in the 1950s it was a high performance signal of managers to leave at 5pm ("I got it all done, time to go home") and a performance concern when people were left at the office into the evening ("why are they so inefficient and slow?"). For some reason, the status signaling flipped, during the world's most productive and affluent era in the last thirty years. We're beautiful creatures, us humans! I always encourage young people to actively decide what kind of firm culture they want, and to go find it because there is still a mixed bag of attitudes as…
A retro-post from earlier in the year, scribblings the Saturday morning after I took an evening walk with my friend Sanjay. Sanjay and I became friends having met and got chatting in the gym on Chestnut Street, years ago. And, we randomly stayed in touch since. You know when you catch eye contact with someone, take that momentary instinct to say hello or make a comment, and just get chatting straight away, curiosity unraveling in some kind of deepening resonance? We would trade notes on life in London, where we both lived for years and talk about American-ness and European-ness and Indian-ness. And, both being 'late single' we'd find the time to take a neighbourhood walk every now and then.…
“Stop expecting a reply” I’ve often shared with others raising money for investment funds. “…Earn the reply”, I’ll provoke. This attitude came to mind coming off the phone last week, an update call with a portfolio manager I speak with at a US state pension plan. The segment of the portfolio he looks after amounts to three or four billion dollars in ‘real assets’, tangible investments in natural resources, real estate and infrastructure. I found myself thinking back to the beginning of our relationship, and a lesson I taught myself intuitively in the slow-cooking pot of building trusted professional relationships. It was 2013-14 that this all started, when I’d spend hours doing research and crafting cold emails. I can still…
This post is an assignment from the Writing course I took during my Q4 2021 sabbatical. While I discovered Lovelock years and years ago, it was only in 2019 in preparing to read at the wedding of my great friend Pierre in Brittany that I got to know Carl Sagan. It was funny to learn that they were office mates at NASA...