No, it's the Ritz

The weekend retreat at the Ritz in Half Moon Bay was just the ticket. It started off with a bang. On the way to the resort, we happened to spot one of our colleagues darting around in his new BMW M3 convertible. He shot us the "wanna race" glance and in no time, we were off to the races. Not much of a matchup given I was driving my lowly Subaru Outback. But one of my passengers knew of a shortcut through a local road bypassing a particularly nasty stretch of Highway 1, the route our bimmer friend took. Needless to say, the porter was carting our bags into the hotel just as the M3 roared into the valet station. Chalk one up for the underdog. Indeed, knowledge is power. Later that afternoon, we made sure to rib him plenty about the embarrassing defeat. The dinner in the Miramontes Room rocked. Grilled lobster tails and fresh raw bar served out on a clifftop terrace overlooking the Pacific Ocean during sunset... it had a dreamlike quality to it. Afterwards, everyone congregated around the fire pit for the ritual cooking of the smores. Others opted for cigars and cognac. The best part was going back to my room which came furnished with a large and inviting marble bath and had incredible views of the coastline and the nearby golf links. It all conjured up that classic scene in one of my all-time favorite movies, Field of Dreams, when Shoeless Joe Jackson surveys the pristine baseball diamond built on Ray Kinsella's wheat field... Shoeless Joe: "Is this heaven?"... Ray: "No, it's Iowa."

Retreat Hangover

The outside speaker at this year's retreat was Andrew Tilton, the senior economist at Goldman Sachs. His summary of the economy and the outlook for the near and medium term were sobering. The boost from the stimulus has ended, the federal budget deficit is growing, the need to devalue the currency is inevitable, the medicare system needs to be fixed, the Fed has only begun its tightening of rates, corporate profits are headed downward as productivity begins to decline, ad infinitem. He made a point of downplaying the effect of higher oil prices on the economy by pointing to a more troublesome issue, the huge effect that mortgage refinancings have had in boosting consumer spending and consequently, the business sector. Tilton and other economists view the drying up of the mortgage refi market as a more troublesome issue as the economic recovery tries desperately to gain traction. As for the one bright spot in the economy thus far, housing, Tilton believes the "bubble" (yes, he used the term "bubble") began six months ago when he and other economists witnessed the irrational rising of home prices soon after a rise in mortgate rates; this was on top of analysis showing the widening and untenable gap between income levels and housing prices. He and others believe that housing hotspots like the Bay Area are due for price declines but is of the opinion that such declines will be spread out over a couple of years.

Global Schadenfreude

Very interesting op/ed essay in the latest issue of Foreign Policy (article link here).

Daily Mantra

Just two more days until my Wells group retreat at the Ritz-Carlton Resort & Spa in Half Moon Bay (link here)... just two more days until my Wells group retreat at the Ritz-Carlton Resort & Spa in Half Moon Bay... just two more days until my Wells group retreat at the Ritz-Carlton Resort & Spa in Half Moon Bay. Repeat mantra until the pain is alleviated.

Time is Flying By... at Gale Force

Thought it appropriate with the recent spate of catastrophic hurricanes battering the Southeast that my own schedule has seemed like a plus-150 mph, category 5 windstorm. Wedding planning, honeymoon planning, preparing for my second year of the MBA program, preparing for the move from Burlingame to San Mateo, not to mention the typical demands from work, family, and friends, make Hurricane Ivan look like a minor gust of wind during a typical Chicago day. In the past week, I must have driven what is the equivalent of three laps around the entire Bay Area running errands, visiting with family, meeting with friends, shopping for gifts, searching for furniture, ad infinitem. Thankfully, we have enjoyed and made the most of what little downtime we do have. On Saturday evening, after watching the Cal football team (now ranked tenth in the nation by both AP and ESPN) demolish their second opponent, hapless New Mexico State, we met up with Wag Boy down in Palo Alto and had a hearty dinner at Gordon Biersch off University. The coupling of their seasonal hefeweizen with a basket of their tasty garlic fries rocks. It was a great late summer evening down on "the Farm". And before we knew it, the streets were flooded with inebriated and obnoxious Stanford football fans celebrating their team's drubbing of BYU at neighboring Stanford Stadium. Read later that the Athletic Director had to write a formal letter of apology to BYU for the Stanford Band's halftime show in which they poked fun at BYU's Mormon heritage by depicting a polygamous BYU student with his four wives. Typical. The Stanford Band is notorious for their game-time antics. Most Cal fans will never forget the Band's arrogance when they marched prematurely onto the field during the 1982 Big Game; and will never forget the humiliation the Band suffered seconds later (see photo) at the end of what is now known simply as "the Big Play". They will never learn.