Inaugural Post

This is my first Coastal post and I commend Linda's diligence to have me see the composition through.   I will try not to duplicate any info from Lea's previous post.  I like Linda's bullet point structure and will go that route for round 1:

- I will start with what I am thankful for - family, health, job, tiny bit of breathing room financially & each new day.  It is wild to consider that we had a baseball & soccer season, two weddings, summer camps, etc. that are all likely canceled.  We now have slower evenings and a lot less husting.  Week nights no longer consist of rushing to practice or slamming down dinner to avoid a 11 pm bedtime. 

There is so much pain associated with Corona/Covid (CC) but I think an unexpected benefit is that people and families can slow down and stop creating for a season.  I am trying to slow down enough to hear what Lea and the kids are asking, telling & sharing with me.  Ninety nine percent of this requires that I slow down and pause whatever "urgent" project I am working on. 

- From a work perspective I feel like we are in for a tough year to 18 months.  Most media is expecting a "V" shaped recovery but I am in the "U" camp.  A presenter from JP Morgan recently recommended that people should write down what think will happen in any given scenario using percentages.  If one does this and they keep a running tally then they establish a track record of their estimates, prognostications, bets, etc.  Once they have years of history they can look back and see how wrong (or right) they were.  The JP Morgan presenter was discussing markets and the economy and this practice helped him trust the "data" more and his emotions, biases & desired outcomes less.  In the spirit of the practice above I will use this blog to capture one of my guesses.  I hope it is wrong for obvious reasons.  1) in 2019 there is a 75% chance that the S&P 500 falls 45-50% off all time highs of mid February 2020 (so far we only hit 34% down then bounced back)

- Books : I have not read through all of the Dalton family favorites yet and I am excited to read a few more of those this year.  I am currently reading a boring book on psychology call "Pre-suasion"

- I feel like I can see the kids growing older day to day.  I especially notice it right now with Peter & John.  There is a chance that Lucy has a photographic memory if and when she decides to turn it on.  I don't say this lightly.  I am reading a ~100 page kids book at night to the girls and Lucy, without seeing the page, can recite what one character is going to say to the other at any given time.  She does this to annoy Addy sometimes but blew my mind when she first pulled it off.  She has read the book 5-6 times but this is a big kids book with hundreds of conversations.

- John is regularly talking about "the corona".  I think that he thinks it is a bird or mosquito or something that can appear at any moment.  On a walk today he told me that he wanted to get "the corona".

Until next time...Brendan