Swarfblog

Wonderfully Old School

I am writing this blog longhand because words flow better for me straight from my brain to the paper. Very old school. Today I ordered three one-pound bags of dried Blenheim apricots (not the tasteless Turkish kind) from an orchard owner named Gilbert Gibson who owns Gibson Farms in Hollister,

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The “What if” Question

I have spent my entire business life identifying price anomalies and taking advantage of them to make money. “Buy low, sell high” is my secular

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Tools of Justice

It’s the American Horatio Alger story. Invent the next Xerox machine and get rich. Or get screwed. Dan Brown was a smart Irish kid from

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47 Years

Today is my 47th wedding anniversary. “So what?” you may say. But if you have some curiosity about the marriage of a blogging trader in

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Feeling Steady?

I talk to clients in the machining business almost every day. I often ask the perfunctory question, “How’s business?” and I usually get the perfunctory

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Grecian Earn

I’ve probably been complicit in tax fraud. Certainly not illegally; I’ve always paid Uncle Sam every dollar he says he’s owed. Where I suspect I

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