Thoughts

Anecdotally, the economy, at least where I sit in it, is in the shitter.

-the house across the street from ours, which is gorgeously remodeled and listed at a very reasonable price, has not sold after at least 3 weeks on the market. This is unheard of for our neighborhood, since we moved here. Should be interesting to see how it plays out.

-traffic is lighter on my commute.

-the yen is up almost 20% against the dollar since I had the random thought 3 months ago... hmmm... we are going to Japan in the spring, perhaps I should buy some yen...

-lunches with various lawyers in litigation, patent prosecution, corporate work, etc. all confirm a slowdown in spending on the part of their clients.


The last time the economy sucked such that it affected me, personally, I struggled for a while and finally packed up and headed for Italy for one of the greatest adventures of my life. If, for some reason, I am unable to maintain my career during this downturn, I hope I have the courage to go on a similar adventure, although, I admit, I do not have the effort (over a year of night classes in language lessons) or research (reading about Italy incessantly and applying for various linguistic scholarships through the Italian-American cultural embassy in San Francisco) invested to make it as worthwhile as my last adventure.

Not that the lack of preparation or effort will stop me. I mean, an opportunity is an opportunity...

But, I suspect I may have to weather this downturn from the local trenches.

Let us hope we can have the character and strength to improve through the adversity and survive with character...