Of Men and Nature...
At this time of year, more so than any other, my thoughts turn to the sheer beauty of nature and of all that is new every spring. It's quite amazing to realize that prior to the first film camera, invented by Eastman Kodak here in New York in 1888 and Kodachrome color film which became available from 1936, there was no way for a regular individual to record this explosion of life. Each year, once it was over, it was gone except in the memory and art of each generation.
Back to more prosaic matters, I decided lately to get out and add some pictures of our town to this site. Below you can see St. Andrew's Church where we got married and whose website I recently fixed up. Also the local firehouse, train station and hospital. Despite being a bit scruffy it's not a bad little town and has some fine old buildings by American standards. Nature Judy's Art Pierpont Morgan Brewster Pool
Speaking of art, Judy's drawings and paintings continue to impress. As a result of her latest work "A jury of your Pyr's" (sic) was featured in a blog called Law Actually by a British Lawyer.
Moving back to "men" Dan has taken some time off from work and is using it to improve his mind. This involves visiting a lot of the most excellent museums which are right on the doorstep. Most recently the Pierpont Morgan library and museum. The wealth that JP Morgan managed to amass in one lifetime is truly incredible and his personal library which is the foundation of the museum is beyond compare. It is also the building in which Wall St's first financial crisis was resolved.
Speaking of banking I want to talk about Bitcoin's for a moment. This anonymous digital currency was invented in early 2009, but, despite several setbacks, has really taken off in the last 18 months or so, where it has been used, I gather, for mostly dodgy activities that people would rather keep to themselves.
However, starting last November things got really interesting with the first Bitcoin only banks like "First Pirate Savings and Trust" now renamed to the much more pedestrian Bitcoin Savings and Trust and even a bitcoin Stock Exchange which allows both Equity based ownership of Bitcoin denominated shares in 'companies' under no legal jurisdiction (investing in items as real as a thoroughbred racehorse and also the issuance of debt based bonds and lately even Credit Default Swaps (CDS) which brought the real financial system crashing down a couple of years ago.
What's interesting is that the demand for Bitcoins is sooo high that Pirate Bank and bonds issued against it's 'good credit' are presently paying at least 10% per month (for some savers 1% per day).
Which begs the question what is happening to all this very expensive cash and how long can it last? Will it all come crashing down or, is an anonymous currency, with a market now in the several hundred thousand dollar range, worth the premium currently attached to it?
Is it one huge Ponzi scheme, or is something as fundamental as the World Wide Web or the printing press, or the invention of "banking for interest" happening here?
As a fascinated bystander I can't wait to watch it all unfold.
And finally, we opened the pool today. Oh dear! The legacy of the hurricane and October storm from 2011 continues to haunt us, the bottom of the pool is covered in leaf debris and is pretty much invisible. A long weekend of chemicals and pool cleaning lies ahead.
