They just finished elections here in the Philippines. It looks like they elected the son of the former dictator (Ferdinand Marcos). Who has an arrest warrant in the U.S. š. But nobody has any hope that this will change the corruption here.
It looks like I will be going to Argentina soon for at least a few weeks. If that happens, I will go to Medellin afterwards for a few weeks then on to Bulgaria.
Sorry to end on such a down note. But Iāve had trouble getting this article started, let alone finished. So ā¦ let me put it up so at least people know Iām still on the globe..
So, I have been puttering. Getting the garden cleaned, roof painted, various fixes, and a huge amount of decluttering. Not only I, but also Markās stuff. Almost a year now since he passed. Hard to believe. And I still think about him every day.
For all of my lip service about being happy staying in hotels, and moving from country to country, I have to say it was good to be back in my own place. Especially, having my office back and adequate desk space, the second monitor, my very nice HP printer š , etc. I think I enjoyed traveling far more when I had a base to return to.
But at the same time, there is no doubt that I have been subject to a constant low-level of anxiety being back in proximity to the businesses that I am invested in. I so very much just want to cash out and to be able to go on my merry, bumbling way. As I have told my partners ā¦ Iām tired.
Then again, as I tell myself often, this is the worst problem I have (i.e., that I am invested in successful businesses) and then I have absolutely nothing to complain about. š
My de-cluttering is constant and ongoing. Mark was a box hoarder, and in addition I was finding receipts in his files for things that he had bought as far back as the early 2000ās most of which have faded so much they canāt even be read anymore. Shredder. As of this morning Iāve cleaned out 75% of the clutter. Some will take more work though. See photo of the results of my notebook addiction. If I start using them right now, and writing every day, I still think they would last me 10 years or more. There are about 65 notebooks in that pile and I have more coming that I bought while in the states. š
My biggest issue at the moment is how to get rid of a collection of some 800 CDs. What an investment that was over the years from 85 to the early 2000ās. But, I donāt listen to them. I have copies of them on my hard drive, and I still donāt listen to them. My listening habits these days involve Spotify and Amazon music. Iām having somebody check with local universities to see if they have a music department that might want them.
I find myself in the predicament of too many places to go and not enough time. I think I wrote about this in another blog, that my plan to spend the year in three countries may have run aground on the rocks of reality. I cannot reasonably see how I can make it back to even Varna before the middle of June. And then a couple of months there before I go to Columbia, and then Iāll have to go immediately back to the Philippines. Well, like I said, if that is my worst problem ā¦ No doubt I will be getting lots of frequent flyer miles on Qatar.
I will be contacting that guy about the job to tell him I canāt take it. I will do as a friend suggested and say if he wants me on his board Iād be happy to do that. I just have too much work to do here in Asia.
The idea of sitting on a few company boards does interest me. If I could find a few companies that wanted to pay me a small fee for being on a board and availing of my experience that could be something very different for me. Interesting, some income, not a lot of time or responsibility, and using my experience.
Ukrainian story ā¦ I was trying to send money from a bank in the Philippines to Ukraine. 3 banks [BDO, Metrobank and China Bank ā this list includes the 2 largest banks in the country] declined the transaction because they have Ukraine listed as a āRussia member countryā. I have no words. How braindead ignorant can these bankers be?
I find myself thinking constantly about the adage that the older you get the less you find important. Or words to that effect. And it is true. There is very little that concerns me now. And I am exhausted by the state of the world and my inability to do anything about the plethora of issues. I canāt even talk to most people about it. I donāt even want to pretend to be agreeable. The way I feel today is that Iām too old to appear to be anything I am not. It isnāt worth the trouble. Iāve been that way for years actually but Iāve put on a front so I donāt appear to be too rude but these days ā¦ eeehhhhh.
A quote from a book by Ilona Andrews, bloody books but an excellent writer (It is actually a husband and wife writing team). āPeople, especially unhappy people, want a cause. They want something to belong to, to be a part of something great and bigger, and to be led. Itās easy to be a cog in a machine: you donāt have to think, you have no responsibility. Youāre just following orders. Doing as youāre told.ā That applies to so much in our world today.
And to end on a humorous note ā¦ A quote from another of my favorite authors, Niall Teasdale. āA naked woman is a thing of beauty, and a naked man is an accident waiting to happen: something is bound to get twisted, crushed, mangled, or attacked by a cat.ā
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