A-OK

Yes, it was a great weekend to be me. (Don’t worry, it doesn’t happen all that often.)

I ate a lot, walked a lot, mastered the 1-2-3 Manhattan subway system…

…watched my hero Miguel Cotto win an unbelievably fair decision, finally saw more than 10 Puerto Ricans as an adult, drank, spent a ton of money, and came home to the realization that my hometown Lakers had finally won the NBA championship– again. Which is great because those mere playoff appearances were basically asphyxiating us Angelinos.

Granted, I don’t have too much to look forward to in the next few months. Oh well. It’s all good when you sit back and take the time to appreciate a high level of satisfaction (as I did, frequently, this weekend.)

As Kurt Vonnegut’s uncle would say, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

THE JULIA-CHRIS REUNION

This is always a good time. We just have to stay awake to go out this time. Yep.

COTTO-CLOTTEY

My first live boxing match (with decent seats.) Paulie Malignaggi was quoted earlier this week as saying, “This is going to be a really violent fight.” That seems pretty promising.

PUERTO RICAN DAY PARADE

After Sunday night, I will no longer be able to claim that I’ve never been to Puerto Rico. Pretty much.

JUST BEING IN NYC

I just F’n love that place. I was sitting at my desk thinking about the crowded streets, endless food options, and shopping potential and I couldn’t help cracking a smile. And I’ll be there… tomorrow!

(ti wonk uoY ?sciP)

BTW: I can’t believe I graduated two years ago, today.

But I have to go ahead and be the contrarian who stands up for the high-cost retail broker. Let me tell you, it’s ridiculous to see the kind of hoops these guys have to go through to keep their iron claw on a wealthy client’s assets.

First, you have to work within the framework of the corporation. This includes all of the red tape, due dilligence, and technological flaws that a big corporation utilizes to cut cost/protect their ass against possible litigation. Remember: at any time in the discussion, your client can say “that’s enough” and take his/her assets elsewhere.

Then you have to deal with internal incompetence (assistants, support staff, YOURSELF) and display the type of on-your-feet thinking and humility to know when to place blame on others or take ownership for mistakes to avoid a possible loss in the faith of the firm itself.

But the worst aspect of managing millions of dollars is the fact that some wealthy people are, quite frankly, the type of people that complain about almost every minute detail in the process that doesn’t fit their idea of how a brokerage house should be run. (Keep in mind that their ideas about how a brokerage house should be run never include profitability or protection against risk.)

I’ve heard complaints about $0.05 fees, (no, really!) in depth discussions about the legal wording in website articles, attempts to ensure that the firm isn’t just a massive Ponzi scheme, and enough personal insults to convince me that being a retail broker isn’t exactly a walk in the park.

And who can blame clients? Today’s economy and social atmosphere have taught them to be wary of big-time brokers to the point where the honest guys are starting to feel some unwarranted heat. I was on a call today with a broker where a client was wearing him out to the point where you could literally hear the guy slump into his chair. (The client threatened to go to Ken Lewis‘s firm quite a few times. Explicitly.)

Relax guy. Turn CNBC off. Remove your name from the AARP Financial Tips e-mail list. Your average top-dollar broker isn’t out to break your bank. All he wants is a little bit of your money and the warm, fuzzy feeling he gets from watching both of you reach your retirement goals together!

And if you think “Chuck” is any different, I have nothing to say to you.

Well, not really. The name is just different.

Morgan Stanley and Citi completed the launch of their joint venture LLC today.  It was rushed a bit (probably because Citi needs the money) so the extent to which this affects our department is currently limited to an ‘MSSB’ sticker I placed on my work ID and the need to say ‘Smith Barney’ after every instance in which ‘Morgan Stanley’ is used.

It will be interesting to see the long term effects that the joint venture will have on my position/department in the long run.

(By the way, I forgot I had to work this morning and made the realization when my alarm went off at 7 a.m. this morning. Needless to say, I was speechless.)

By the way, does anyone know who he is dissing? Seems kind of ironic that TQ would R&B diss someone for getting rich and falling off…

(I’m not going to be offended if no one clicks that link.)

Yosemite is a good substitute for Europe, for now. Seems like half the people that talked to me on the trails had some kind of European accent. (And the waitress who served my overpriced beers at Yosemite Lodge.)

Our big thing on the camping trip was Half Dome. I think it’s the manliest hike in Yosemite, or at least Diego made it seem that way. (By the way, he has a crazy story about doing the hike all in one day with Chuck Taylors.)

It’s an 8.2 mile hike. Mostly uphill. We did the smart thing and hiked halfway before setting up camp and waiting until the morning to set out for the top. This strategy precludes any nighttime hiking, which would F’n suck.

So here’s the photo story of Half Dome. We got soaked, bitten by mosquitos, and slept in the frigid wilderness. But really, it was worth it.

See that tiny speck of mountain? They call that "Half Dome." It's over 8,000 feet above sea level. Not sure how high it was from our camp, but it's also F'n far as you can see.

Here's a contrived picture of Diego I took at the start of the hike. We wanted to show how heavy his pack was. Funny story: the smart thing to do after hiking halfway and camping would be to leave our tent and sleeping bags before going to the top, right? We didn't think of that... and we ended up taking our stuff all the way to the top. (And we were reminded of our mistake by quite a few insensitive Euro-hikers.)

This is Vernal Falls, a.k.a. the shittiest part of any hike that goes through Vernal Falls. You spend a good 10 minutes climbing up rock stairs while getting misted by that freezing water. On the way back down after Vernal Falls, a European woman stared at me for about 10 seconds on the steps, and said "You are wet." I remember this exact quote pretty well.

Halfway up, we staked out a good section of nature and sat around for a good 5 hours before sleeping. I wasn't really that bored.

This is where we slept, from about 8:30 P.M. until whatever time it becomes too cold/uncomfortable to stay asleep in a tent.

We set out around 8 a.m. the next morning. It was kinda cold, but sunny, too.

Third species of lizard we saw on the trails. On the animals at Yosemite: you guys were cool, but the mosquitos killed it for me and made me wish it was just human, rock, and tree. Sorry.

These guys hang around 7,000 feet above sea level. I don't understand this at all.

Bro... the cables... were kinda crazy. I was shook. This picture doesn't really capture the steepness or the height. Either way, taking a picture from the cables wouldn't have been that smart. (And this super outdoorsy Euro chick behind us was kind of rushing it and making me feel bad for going slow anyway.)

The view from the top of Half Dome was pretty intense. Like D said, there's something cool about being at the highest point around.

A goodbye shot of Half Dome.

Bottom line: if Euro-chicks love hiking and light-skinned black guys, what am I doing in America?

Now, I just have to think of a unique way to blog Yosemite. I’ll have plenty of time to worry about that, however. It will help if I get a close-up shot of a bear.

(My economics teacher told us a story about a friend’s dog who died on his watch… and how it was the most emotionally straining situation he’s been in, aside from a breakup.

That’s how I felt about LeBron’s game winner last night BTW.)

(Really, it could be a 1992 Ford Escort and a 40 mph stretch of California road and I would still question his mental stability, but that’s another story.)

He’s telling me about another one of his schemes; this time it’s T-shirts with subliminal messages, but like the 1992 Ford Escort example it could literally be ANYTHING. My dad’s been singing the same tune since I was around seven years old and my sister was nine and he brought us into a room and explained, in plain English, how he was going to go about winning the lottery.

This time, the tune’s fragmented and spoken with a whistly old man lisp… and it’s depressing. He’s intermittently throwing in questions to feign interest in anything I have to say, “Am I still dating Anya?” No. “Is my sister coming with us to Yosemite.” Yes. (3x) But the topic of conversation always comes back to his scheme as the projected success scale moves, as always, into the millions of dollars and my response flattens to the point where I’m barely even nodding my head in acknowledgement.

Does he even notice that I’m half asleep? I don’t even get to see him that often… why is he going on this rant? I tell my friends in Ohio sometimes that I’m a lot like my dad, but now that I’m in the same zip code as Willy T I’m asking myself,  “Am I really like him?”

A few seconds later he buys me In’N'Out and in the midst of praising his fluency in Russian offers this gem:

“I wish Tanya was here right now, she’d be blown away.”

I want to say it’s Anya, and that even we’re not dating anymore, and that four years have passed since he’s seen her last, but what’s the point.

In spite of all the frustration I’ve felt during the car ride and dinner, I still can’t bring myself to disrupt his bizarre reality. I just feel sorry for the guy.

AND IF YOU FEEL THE SAME AFTER READING THIS, BUY HIS BOOK!