Community service, my foot. The judge's foot, too.

Ammon Bundy probably wouldn't make my list of Top One Hundred people I hope never to hear another word of or peep out of, ever, ever again in a million, kabillion years. But if I were to expand that imaginary list to Top Five Hundred, old Ammon might well make the cut.

To jog your memory about just who this jagoff is - and thank you, Mark Cuban, for exposing the world beyond Pittsburgh to the delights of this term for a contemptible person - he's a far-right activist who's been involved in all sorts of politically-"inspired" nastiness over the years. 

Back in 2014, along with his father Cliven, Ammon was part of an armed standoff with the BLM at the family ranch in his hometown of the aptly named Bunkerville, Nevada. He then moved his protest sights north and was involved, in 2016, in occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Range in Oregon. 

Charges were dropped in both of these cases because the prosecution withheld some key information. Which is not to say that Ammon Bundy isn't a hot-headed loud-mouthed jerk. Make that hot-headed loud-mouthed jagoff. 

It probably goes without saying that Ammon Bundy is in cahoots with ultra-rightists like the Oath Keepers. And it probably goes without saying that Ammon Bundy has also been involved in getting in the way of the government ability to do anything about the pandemic. This time, in Idaho.

This time, he ran out of "darn, the prosecution screwed up" luck:

Bundy was sentenced in July (2021) to 40 hours of "public service" in lieu of a jail sentence after being convicted of trespassing and resisting arrest for refusing to leave a closed committee room in the Idaho Statehouse during the 2020 legislative special session. (Source: Idaho Press)

Being sentenced to forty hours of "public service" isn't exactly like being put on a chain gang, but it apparently wasn't exactly his cup of tea.

At his sentencing, Bundy was explicitly instructed "that working for his own organization, or any service for which he got paid, would not count."

Well, count shmount.

Bundy, who is running for governor of Idaho, boldly:

...submitted hours that he had worked on his own political campaign, turning in a letter on his own "Ammon Bundy For Governor" letterhead certifying that he had completed all 40 hours.

How convenient. (Please excuse Ammon for not having been to school today. Signed, Ammon's Mom.)

I realize that not every non-profit agency is equipped to do the sorts of monitoring court-mandated community service requires, but t's really not all that difficult to find places to do community service.

I volunteer at a homeless shelter, and we occasionally have folks come in to work in the kitchen or the dish room as part of a plea deal. There's always a place that does good works that can use a spare set of hands for a few hours here and there. 

Maybe do-gooding by helping feed the homeless, or picking up trash by the side of the road, or hammering a few nails in for Habitat for Humanity, didn't appeal to Ammon Bundy. But to have the gall to think for a New York minute - or even an Idaho minute - that campaigning for himself for governor of Idaho is community services. Ha, I say, ha, ha. 

So, apparently, did the judge:

On Thursday, Judge Annie McDevitt ruled that not only did his campaign work not satisfy the requirement, but that it showed blatant disrespect for the instructions he had been given.

"The whole point of public service is to give back to the community in ways that do not serve yourself," she said. "Clearly, working for your own campaign is self-serving work."  

She sentenced him to ten days in the slammer: the original five-day sentence for the trespassing violation, which had been suspended, and a tacked on five days for contempt. Plus a $3K fine. 

The deputies slapped the handcuffs on his way and hauled him off to jail. 

Meanwhile, Ammon Bundy's been on probation for yet another offense, and has also committed yet another similar offense.

I suppose he thought he could just keep working off any "punishment" that came his way by putting up election signs or speaking to gatherings of RWNJ's. 

When Mitt Romney was running for president, he made a pretty dumb remark - especially given that he's a pretty smart guy. When asked about whether any of his five sons had been in the military service, he replied that they had served their country by working on his election campaigns.

Well, campaigning for your father is not quite the equivalent of going through bootcamp, getting flown off to god knows where, and having your leg blown off by an IED. Anymore than campaigning for yourself is community service. 

Mitt Romney's off-the-cuff remark was just a minor case of stupid. Political gaffe time. Ammon Bunday's trying to pass his "work" off as community service is stupid, ridiculous, and just plain galling. Glad he's now had a cuffs-on experience and has had to do some jail time. Meanwhile, I don't have a ton of faith in the voters of Idaho, but I bet they're smart enough not to let this putz win. 

And you thought your college dorm was awful

If I gave any thought whatsoever to where flight attendants sleep during layovers - which I admittedly don't do all that often - it would be to assume that they were put up, by their airlines, in a hotel. This assumption would be based on the many times over the years I've seen flight crews wheeling their bags through hotel lobbies. Fly the friendly skies, put your little headie down in a comfy hotel.

So what's up with the illegal, unpermitted crash pad near Logan Airport where 19 flight attendants have been chipping in $300 a month each to bunk - literally - in an apartment that the City of Boston has just declared "unfit for habitation?" But a nice hefty monthly take for the slumlord who owns the joint.

The East Boston property, above what was originally built as a parking and repair garage, had been converted into a cramped apartment, where short-term residents slept in bunk beds and shared a kitchen, officials said. The building had no smoke alarms and only one exit. (Source: Boston Globe)

Inspectional services was called in after the Boston Fire Department tipped them off. BRD had been called in when one of the residents contacted them to report a faulty electrical panel. The firefighters secured the panel but, having gotten a gander at the surrounds, dimed the place. 

On Tuesday, inspectors found that the garage’s second floor had been converted to two residential quarters, while the first floor was being used to improperly store flammable materials, including gasoline, officials said. 

Here's what this charm spot looks like from the outside. On the inside, the basement was full of items like gas cans and all sorts of other things that might as well have had the skull-and-crossbones poison symbol on them. 

The sleeping quarters were jammed full of bunks with narrow walkways between them, clothing and towels piled up all over the place. The crowding looked like something you might have seen in a picture of an East Side tenement from 1900. Or a bunk house in an old cowboy movie. Or from the sort of place that a ton of illegal immigrants jam into so they can send every spare penny they make home.

If that electrical panel had sparked, this place could have blown sky high.

I suppose that if you're young, and in real life you live somewhere else, and just need a place to conk in Boston a couple of days a week, for a few hours at a time, and you want to save your per diem (assuming you get one) for something more fun than paying rent on a nice shared flat, well...

And flight attendants are, after all, used to being in cramped communal situations, sitting in the back of a plane strapped into what looks like pretty uncomfortable pull down seats. So maybe being in the top bunk in a bunkroom ain't all that bad. Maybe you're just so tired of breathing the stale plane air, and having to deal with drunk passengers who don't want to wear that strangling mask, that you're dead asleep before your head hits the pillow.

Still...

This situation has been going on for quite a while.

“From my understanding they’ve been operating for about 10 years there, so they went under the radar for quite a while,” said Flavio Daveiga of Boston Inspectional Services. “They’re just using it as a resting point like refresh and then continuing on to their trips or their commute back to their home base.” (Source: CBS Local)

So the good news is that the flight attendants maybe aren't actually living living there. Just hanging out. But what a lousy place to hang out. (Where do the pilots crash, I wonder.)

I do get the need for a refresh. Years ago, my husband and I flew to Prague, with a seven-hour layover in Frankfurt after an overnight flight from Boston. We weren't looking forward to the idea of spending those seven hours in a stupor in the terminal, and as we were standing there not looking forward, one of us looked forward and saw a Sheraton Hotel right across from the terminal's entrance. 

We walked over and asked if we could rent a room for a few hours. 

Indeed we could.

We had a nice breakfast, a nice nap, and a nice shower, and made it to Prague fully refreshed and ready to roll.

So I get it.

Some are pointing to this airline crash pad as just another example of what-do-you-expect from Boston's general high-rent, low-availability market. (And, yes, there are the inevitable calls for rent control.) Others are using it to make a plausible argument that someone (the airlines? the city? the airlines and the city?) should put up airline industry specific housing, near the airport, where crew members can crash for a while. 

I'm just relieved that nothing bad came of this terrible living situation. And wondering how many other garden spots there are like this, where poor folks double, triple, quadruple up in "converted" basements, attics, and garages, under terrible conditions. 

While I don't think this is an argument for rent control - I just don't think it works - it sure is an argument for more affordable housing. 

And you thought your college dorm or first cruddy apartment was as bad as it gets. 

Benjamin Franklin fan-girl here

When it comes to the Founding Fathers, I'm in the "mostly pretty darned good" camp. Best idea: "All men are created equal." (Imperfectly executed, but a noble thought.) Best thing about them: a lot of them were deists. Not quite as good as atheist, but they believed that belief in God was rational (which even I'll admit in some ways it is, e.g., reason for being/making some sense out of the whole big mess). And deists didn't believe that God played an active role in the day-to-day and that humans should use their reason to solve their own damned problems. And they didn't believe that the U.S. should be a Christian nation.

On the other hand, a lot of them were slaveowners. Sure, men of their times and position, etc. Still, not a great look. And then there's the Electoral College. Thanks for nothing, guys.

Historically, if I were asked who my favorite Founding Father was, you might think I'd have picked local boy John Adams - not just for himself, but for his wonderful wife Abigail. But, no. I always leaned towards Jefferson.

I can trace my Jeffersonian fandom to 1972, when I visited his home in Monticello. All those cool inventions, like the swivel chair, the dumbwaiter, and a pasta-making machine. Plus he helped popularize mac 'n cheese AND ice cream in the U.S. He was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, which remains a beautiful piece of writing. (I read it every Fourth of July.) But offsetting the man's greatness was not just his being just any-old-Southern-slaveowner. There's the Sally Hemings thing. Hemings was one of his slaves, and Jefferson began having sexual relations with her when she was 14 and Jefferson was 44. He fathered a number of children with her. (On the plus side, Jefferson did free their children. So there's that.)

But now that I've watched Ken Burns' PBS documentary on Ben Franklin, I'm coming around to some serious fandom.

I have, of course, always known about Ben. In grammar school, we even learned a little ditty about him:

Benjamin Franklin, inventor was he
Out in a storm with a kite and a key
Found how electric the lightning can be
Good old Benjamin Franklin

And I knew that he was born in Boston, but left - runaway to get away from the older brother he was indentured to - to make his fortune in Philadelphia. That he was a printer. An inventor - out in that storm, with that kite and that key. Poor Richard's Almanac. A Founding Father. The first Postmaster General. Ambassador to France. The face on the hundred dollar bill. Bald.

And then I watched the Burns' documentary, and learned so much more. And began to appreciate Franklin's genius and greatness. 

At 10, he was taken out of school to work for the family's candle-making business, but he was what we'd call now a lifelong learner. A couple of years later, he was apprenticed - with a 9 year indenture - to his brother James. Where he kept learning. And started writing, irreverent and pointed essays, for his brother's upstart, anti-establishment newspaper, under the name "Silence Dogood." 

At the age 17, he high-tailed it out of Boston, illegally fleeing the apprenticeship he had legally signed on for.

I'm not going to live tweet (or unlive blog) the show, but what an adventurous life the man lived.

And unlike the other Founding Fathers (most? all?), he came from a background that was very modest. A self made man!

Among his inventions: Bifocals. (Thanks, Ben.) Swim fins (of all things). The lightning rod. (The song was correct: he found how electric the lightning can be. And saved the life of plenty of bellringers and others who'd been struck by lightning.) The Franklin stove. The flexible catheter. The first electrical battery. (And named it the battery.) And he never patented any of his adventures, because he wanted people to benefit from them.

Because books were so important to him, his gateway to learning, he founded the first lending library, predecessor to the free public libraries. He published Pamela, the first novel published in America. (Friends, I read Pamela for AP English.) And he founded the college that became Penn. 

Self-educated, he ended up with honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, and William and Mary. 

He helped cook up the idea of uniting the colonies, i.e., the idea of the United States.

Franklin was, as his first pen name implied, a do gooder, and - marketing genius - came up with the idea of the matching gift campaign to help raise funds for important civic initiatives. 

He was funny: clever, a witty writer. (I'm not familiar with any of the other Founding Fathers having a sense of humor.)

Interesting that, among the Founding Fathers, Franklin was something of the Founding Grandfather. He was born in 1706. Washington was born in 1732, Jefferson in 1743. 

Ben Franklin wasn't perfect. He had slaves, house servants. And often wrote about the inferiority of Blacks. (He did offer a bit of reflection on his racist ideas, writing that maybe he was just caught up in his own biases.) Eventually, though, influenced by his Quaker friends, he freed his slaves and became a staunch abolitionist. 

He also railed against non-English (especially 'swarthy' immigrants). 

Still, he was a very wise man, who had a lot of very wise things to say. 

There never was a good war or a bad peace.
He that lies down with Dogs, shall rise up with fleas.
Fish and visitors stink in three days
There never was a good war or a bad peace.
He that lies down with Dogs, shall rise up with fleas.

Haste makes waste

 There is so much there there...

So, out with the old (Thomas Jefferson). In with the new: Ben Franklin fan girl here.

I'd never heard this one, but Ben Franklin also said:

If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.

You did, indeed. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Philadelphia is, of course, more associated with Ben Franklin than Boston is, but he was/is one of our own. The picture here is of a statue of Ben that stands in front our our Old City Hall. 

Moola Moola!

Embezzlers have long held a certain fascination for me. Maybe it's the sheer brazenness of thinking they'll get away with it forever. Maybe it's the banality of what the embezzlers spend their money one. Remember the hockey mom in Michigan who spent a lot of the money she skimmed from her kids' hockey league on Pandora jewelry. Then there was the woman who scarfed $6.9M out of the coffers of the Massachusetts construction company she worked for - money she spent on, among other things, a statue of Al Capone and an appearance by Burt Bachrach at a party for her brother. I've written about so many of them over the years, I should set up an "embezzlement" category. 

But I don't recall an embezzlement of the magnitude of the one that recently occurred at Yale University, where an employee of the School of Medicine ripped off $40M in computer and other electronic equipment.

Oh, Jamie Petrone didn't pocket the entire $40M. She probably only pocketed (and spent) a fraction, as her scam-scheme was such that she sold the equipment to a reseller, presumably at a steep discount. Still, over the years, she walked off with plenty. Enough to buy three properties in Connecticut, and another home in Georgia. Not to mention luxury travel, designer duds, and the requisite fleet of Cadillacs, Benzes, and Land Rovers. (Documented, of course, on social media. Insta Insta!)

My favorite purchase: this ghastly Louis Vuitton bag. Seriously, folks, if you were going to drop $5K on a pocketbook, would this be it???  Not me! I'd steal another $10K or $20K and get a more tasteful Hermes Birkin bag. Sheesh.

Here's how Petrone, over a nearly decade long period, ran her scam:

Officials said Petrone bought or ordered others to buy millions of dollars of electronics and computer equipment such as Apple iPads and MacBooks and cameras using Yale Med funds, splitting up the purchases to fall below the $10,000 threshold [this was her signing authority]. The goods were later shipped to an out-of-state business, which resold the equipment and wired money to Maziv Entertainment LLC, a company of which Petrone is a principal, according to federal officials. (Source: Washington Post)

I guess it goes without saying, that Petrone didn't pay taxes on any of this.  

She has now pleaded guilty to wire fraud and tax evasion. She's agreed to forfeit her properties, and pay Yale and the IRS back. Since what she directly pocketed was a lot less than the value of what she stole, I'm guessing that the restitution to Yale will be partial. 

Anyway, Petrone - who is in her early forties - will be sentenced in June, and could face over 20 years in the slammer. 

Her attorney, Frank J. Riccio II, said in an email that “Ms. Petrone has accepted responsibility for her actions and is remorseful. She now looks forward towards sentencing and repairing some of the damage that has been caused.”

I'll be she's looking forward to the sentencing...

Anyway, what's really shocking to me is that the internal controls at Yale were so lax that they never found her theft out. $40M translates into a ton of iPads, MacBooks, Surfaces, and cameras. No one noticed that the the med school was spending a lot for nonexistent programs with nonexistent needs?

It wasn't Yale auditors who discovered the scam, by the way. It was a colleague who saw her shoving equipment into her car and dimed her. 

Yale initially alerted authorities to suspected criminal behavior last year, said Karen N. Peart, a spokeswoman for the university. “The university thanks local law enforcement, the FBI, and the U.S. attorney’s office for their handling of the case,” she wrote in an email. “Since the incident, Yale has worked to identify and correct gaps in its internal financial controls.”

I'll bet they've worked "to identify and correct gaps in its internal financial controls." I wouldn't be surprised if a head or two in the Yale Med accounting department didn't end up rolling out the door on this one.

Yale is a super rich school. The overall university endowment is $31.1B (second only to that of Harvard, which is $42B). Yale's medical school alone has an endowment of $2.85B. So they can afford to take a $40M hit spread over a decade. Still, that's a ton of money to let slip through your fingers through sheer negligence.

Boola Boola! Moola Moola!

Me chakra, su chakra?

Chakra is one of those words I've seen a whole bunch of times, without knowing - other in the vaguest of ways - just what it means. Something vaguely New Age-y. Something vaguely spiritual. Something vaguely Eastern. Something vaguely "just chant in the name of the Lord and you'll be free"-ish. 

But then I saw a Boston Globe headline that read "Crystals, cards, and chakra bowls: Psychic businesses boom during the pandemic."

Crystals, okay. Not that I'm a user, but at least I get what a crystal is. 

Cards I get. I may even have a Tarot deck around here somewhere. Not to mention a Ouija board.

But chakra bowls? That was a new one. 

So I had to look up both chakra and chakra bowls. 

Perhaps because I'm too non-spiritual and shallow, the definitions I found of chakra didn't exactly make it crystal clear. But I guess a chakra is an energy point - whatever that means - in the body, and there are seven of them. Each is associated with some property or other. If I've got this right, it looks like my main chakra - if there is such a thang - is the Throat Chakra, associated with Communications. There are also associations with physical and emotional well-being. 

But what do I know? When it comes to such spiritual matters, I'm no smarter than the average bear. I mean, I don't even know Yogi Maharishi Mahesh from Yogi Berra. 

I did glean that you want to keep all your chakras in free-flowing harmony. And that sometimes you need to unblock those chakras. 

There are a number of different ways to unblock: chanting a mantra, striking a yoga pose or two, playing around with essential oils, or using a chakra bowl.

There's a different colored bowl associated with each chakra point. You - or your yogi or spiritual facilitator or significant chakra-ish other - uses that little tapper to unblock the stuffed up chakra that's holding you back. As it turns out, the color for the Throat/Communications chakra is blue, which, as it happens, is my favorite color. So maybe there really is something to this chakra stuff. (Never say never.)

Equipped with my new found knowledge, I now felt ready to delve into the article on how the psychic biz is thriving, thanks to covid. 

The COVID-19 pandemic breathed new life into the industry of “alternative spirituality,” where customers rely on readings and reiki-charged candles for guidance. Businesses sprinkled around Boston are experiencing a spike in interest and revenue that has yet to taper out.

Crowds flock to Open Doors, an eclectic Braintree storefront stuffed with chakra bowls, lion statuettes, and images of Egyptian deities. Open Doors has 18 readers, who saw 25 percent more business over the past 12 months than in prepandemic days, said owner Richard Lanza. Products that can be lumped into “all things metaphysical” are up 40 percent, too, as are books on Buddhism, Christianity, and the nature-based pagan religion of Wicca.

“We’ve all gone through a period of uncertainty financially, health-wise, and career-wise,” Lanza added. “People are reevaluating what their life is about, and they’re looking for answers and insight.”

Owners of four other spiritual reading businesses who spoke to the Globe said the same. When the pandemic first hit, people felt their lives upended. Millions stopped going out and reprioritized wellness over work. Stress and uncertainty drove unprecedented levels of mental illness, addiction, and suicide. But without “normal” life to lean on, many turned to a different method of coping: the supernatural. (Source: Boston Globe)

Stress. Boredom. Man's search for meaning. Woman's search for meaning, too. All triggered more interest in things spiritual.

Just not in me.

Not that the pandemic didn't trigger anything in me.

For one thing, it triggered eating a lot more chocolate, which sent my glucose level into the stratosphere. 

I thought that it would trigger me to get all sorts of things taken care of. Clean out all my junk drawers. Get more reading done. Finish my novel. 

I did manage to clean out some clothing and books, which I Ubered over to Goodwill. But my reading was, pathetically, focused way too much on making myself nuts reading the screeches on Twitter. And I do have a few more chapters of my novel to show for the shutdown, but it really should be completed and knocked into shape by now. (Not that there's any compelling reason to finish it...)

This all suggests that my chakras are plenty stuck. Maybe I should get some bowls to tap on. Or lay in a supply of:

...colorful stones like moldavite, which [Open Door's Richard] Lanza said can "clear away the debris” and “set the stage for new possibilities" in life. (Anita Jackson, a longtime Open Doors employee, said that whenever the virus surges, there is particular interest in the anxiety relief and luck manifestation crystal kits.) Others choose affirmations, incense, oracle decks, and herbs like golden seal root, devil’s claw, or sage. If that’s not enough, there are spell mixes and gemstone rings.

Gemstones? Righteous! 

Then there are readers: psychics, mediums, and tarot card interpreters. 

There's also something called an "angel intuitive," who puts you in touch, I guess, with your guardian angel, and maybe some of the other types of angels out there.

Did we actually learn in grammar school that there are a lot of different angel types: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominations, Principalities, Powers, Virtues, Archangels, Angels. Yes, I believe we did. Did child-me actually recite the Guardian Angel Prayer (“Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God's love commits me here. Ever this day be at my side, to light, to guard, to rule, to guide. Amen.”)?  Why yes, yes I did. Maybe not in over 60 years, but I didn't have to look it up. 

These days, none of this stuff is exactly my jam. I don't think I'll be calling on the services of an "angel intuitive." I don't think I'll ever be buying "a Bulgarian UV light necklace," which one guy mentioned in the article had purchased, either. But I'm happy to see that some small businesses are thriving. 

And whatever gets you through the night (and day). It's a tough world out there (and in here). We all need all the help we can get. So I'm not discounting psychic-y stuff entirely. I'll give the novel a couple more months, and if nothing's doing, I may order some chakra bowls on Etsy and start unblocking. 

This is outrageous

Deborah Foss of New Bedford is 66. A few years ago, she used her life savings and an inheritance to buy, outright, a small, modest home. Even though her monthly retirement income was miniscule, she thought she was set for life.

Then Foss fell on some hard times. She began experiencing health issues. Barely existing on monthly income of less than $1K, she fell behind on her property tax payments. 

So in 2018, New Bedford sold its tax lien on her Foss' home to an outfit called Tallage Davis, LLC, a firm with a nifty ka-ching business: acquiring tax liens and turning around and selling the properties they foreclose on for big bucks. (There arebucket firms, and then there are scum bucket firms.)

Here's how it works (for the Tallages of the world) or doesn't (that would be for the Deborah Fosses of the world):

Once the company takes over the lien it is allowed to charge 16 percent interest on the outstanding back taxes. If the homeowner still cannot pay, the company can foreclose on the property and evict them. After paying the taxes, it gets to keep the remaining equity in the property — which could be hundreds of thousands of dollars. (Source: Boston Globe)

Which is precisely what happened to Deborah Foss.

Given the extortionary interest rate Tallage was allowed to charge, Foss' debt grew, and all of a sudden she was faced with coming up with $24K - quite a bit more than the original $10K she owed - or having her property foreclosed. With Foss unable to come up with that kind of money, Tallage took possession on her home. 

On March 1, “Tallage sold the property for $242,000, which was at least $210,000 more that Ms. Foss’s total debt,” and about $232,000 more than Tallage had paid the City of New Bedford for the lien back in 2018, the suit says.

This is quite a bit different than what happens when a bank forecloses on a property. 

In that case, the bank sells the property, deducts from the proceeds what it is owed, then returns any remaining equity to the former owner.

This is admittedly an apples-oranges situation. Foss owed taxes, not a mortgage, which she didn't have. Still, under this scenario, Foss would have walked away with enough money to get herself better situated, and maybe even getting to enjoy the rest of her life, however meager her income. 

Instead, Foss finds herself homeless, living out of her car.

A small public interest law firm (with a libertarian bent) has filed a suit on Foss' behalf, claiming that she was duped. 

“Had Ms. Foss known that her entire property was at risk of being taken, including all the equity value she had built up in the property, she would have sold the property, sought a loan, secured a payment plan, or made other arrangements to satisfy her tax debt to the city before losing everything,” the suit says.

Massachusetts is one of the minority of states that allows for this practice, and the lawsuit is hoping to result in "a ban on what it calls 'home equity theft.'" 

Speaking at a press conference in Boston announcing the suit, Foss on Tuesday said “I can’t believe this happened to me. It’s cruel and wrong and it shouldn’t happen to anyone else.”

"Cruel" and "wrong." Couldn't have said it any better myself.

Two state reps are proposing a bill that will outlaw this cruel and wrong practice, which in Massachusetts in the last seven years has gouged about $37M in equity "above what the homeowners owed in property tax debt."

Good for them. I'll be writing my state rep, Jay Livingstone, to support this bill.

As Deborah Foss said, "It shouldn't happen to anyone else."

Amen to that.

AirTag, you're it - whether you like it or not

The idea behind Apple's AirTag - which lets you locate misplaced items - is a reasonably good one. Who hasn't put their keys down somewhere. Or forgotten where they left their wallet. Or, God forbid, have their tablet or laptop stolen. With AirTag, you place a small button on the object you want to track, and you can track where it is using your iPhone (or even a pedestrian Android phone), or your iPad or Mac (useful if you want to track the whereabouts of your phone).

There are plenty of other trackers out there, but most work within a somewhat limited range. AirTag uses an approach that includes all the iPhones out there helping do its tracking. 

In any case, AirTags aren't just used to track the lost, the stolen, the strayed. They're used for stalking.

Fortunately, you're alerted if an AirTag that's not yours is moving with you and is being tracked by someone who is not you. (If you're an Android user, you need a separate app to get the alert.)

Still: ultra creepy.

One woman got the alert and, when she arrived home, told her husband. He found the tracking device in her coat pocket. A woman in Georgia found one in her gas tank.

Just recently, Francesca Nardelli, a young Boston woman, spent the night out in South Boston, which has become something of a night out hub for young locals. She received a notification the next morning that someone was keeping a technology-enabled eye on her.

“I was like immediately in panic mode,” she said. “Anybody could’ve put something on our stuff and started tracking us.”

Unsure of what to do next, Nardelli called the police who checked her car and her purse but came up empty.

“Everywhere that I’ve been, everywhere that I’m going is just being watched, so I didn’t feel safe going anywhere,” she said. (Source: WHDH)

Another Boston woman has also reported an incident to the police.

Nardelli is working with BPD to try to figure out who's stalking her. Good luck, Francesca! Hope they find and nail the bastard. 

“This is my personal nightmare. I’m so terrified of people violating my personal privacy like that,” she said.

Of course it's terrifying. Made all the more terrifying by the fact they haven't found the AirTag button that someone placed with her. Something like this happening has to make you ultra paranoid, that's for sure. 

Maybe the stalker is "just" doing this for the kicks, for their own personal entertainment. But maybe they're obsessing on a person for some reason. The examples I've seen are all of attractive young women. Is there a mere teched-up but harmless incel tracing them, or is it a psycho killer? Who wants to wait around to find out...

Anyway: sick, sick, sick. And women have a right to be sick, sick, sick and tired of this crap. 

As Satchel Paige once famously advised, "Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you." If Satch were still with us, he'd have to revise his quote. Maybe to something along the lines of "Look back. Someone you don't know is using AirTag to stalk you." Or "Be afraid. Be very afraid."

You know, sometimes technology's a good thing.

Other times...

I realize there were bad guy stalkers out there before technology. Ted Bundy had a VW bug, not any sophisticated tracking devices. Still, technology makes this crap a lot easier. Ugh...

What watch? Ten watch. Such much!

There's a scene in Casablanca in which a couple of refugees, in preparation for leaving for America, are practicing their English. 

The husband, asking his wife for the time, says, "Sweetnessheart, what watch?" Looking at her watch, she answers, "Ten watch. Such much!"

Frau Leuchtag - soon to be Mrs.-in-America Leuchtag - is referring to the time being later than she thought.

But "such much" were the first words that came to my mind when I read about the European Watch Company (EWC), which is not in Europe at all, but is on Boston's Newbury Street, a few minutes walk from my home.

They've got a watch for sale that's going for $2.9M.

Such much, indeed. 

Of course, if you aren't looking for a wristwatch with "a rotating bauble called a tourbillon that’s designed to compensate for the effect of gravity on the watch’s mechanical parts", you can settle for something a lot more affordable. But we're not talking Timex here. Each month, EWC sells about 400 watches, and the average cost for a watch is around $40K. (Compare and contrast: I haven't worn a watch in years, but the last watch I had was a Skagen that cost about $100. Needless to say it didn't have a tourbillon.)

Anyway, EWC has been around since 1993, founded by Albert Ganjei a software engineer by day, and a "watchaholic" the rest of the time. When he started out, the watches he sold averaged $300. But that was then, and this is now. There are a lot of watch connoisseurs out there, and apparently plenty of them have enough discretionary income that their eyes don't roll into the back of their heads when they see a price tag of $40K or more. Au contraire: those eyes light up. 

The pandemic hasn’t hurt business one bit. Reginald Brack, an independent watch industry consultant, said that costly timepieces have sold well despite the COVID crisis, partly because so many other luxuries were out of reach during the lockdowns — fine dining, for instance, or foreign travel. But even when the pandemic was at its worst, you could always order a $100,000 watch online. (Source: Boston Globe)

Most of what EWC sells is pre-owned, what we used to call "used." 

During a recent visit, about 140 vintage Rolexes were on hand, as well as dozens of watches from other elite firms, such as Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, and Vacheron Constantin. The great majority of sales involve trade-ins. A customer might swap five $10,000 Rolexes plus $50,000 in cash for a single $100,000 Patek Philippe, an even more exalted brand famed for making virtually every part of its watches by hand.

A thing of beauty, as Keats poeted, is a joy forever. Whether a joy or not for the entire time, a well-maintained, high quality watch can last forever. (Even a cheap watch lasts pretty long. I'm pretty sure if I found that Skagen and replaced the battery, it would keep good time.) Over the years, expensive watches have proven to be a good investment. Like art, they're considered "investment vehicles." Plus, as the article points out, unlike an NFT, "high-end watches are tangible, touchable, real."

You can't just pop into EWC to browse their tangible, touchable, real wares. While customers sometimes do drop by:

...there’s no showroom here. Nearly all business takes place in a spacious room where 10 watch traders make transactions by phone and e-mail. 

In addition to the sales staff, EWC employs a crew of skilled repair men, including a master watchmaker, and three full-time photographers to take pics for the EWC website and app. One of the sales people, Ganjei's son Joshua, specializes in watches that cost $400K plus. Selling pedestrian watches for $150K had become boring to Joshua. Now he's looking for a buyer for the $2.9M watch with the tourbillon.

What watch? Such much!

Falconry? Thank you, no.

I like birds as much as the next guy.

I mean, they can be beautiful. They can make beautiful sounds. And they can fly, which in itself is something of a miracle. Bonus points that birds are what dinosaurs evolved into. 

I love seeing the first robin each spring. Of course, these days, I don't know if it's the first robin of spring, or a robin which was just comfortable to hang on during our increasingly milder winters. Still, my spirits are always buoyed when I spot a robin red breast in February or March.

I love the occasional spotting of what to me, a non-bird watcher, is a rare bird: a cardinal, a Baltimore oriole, a scarlet tanager, a goldfinch.

I love the less rare sighting of a blue jay. Sure, they make an obnoxious cawing noise, but blue's my favorite color, so...

I love seeing hawks - or are they falcons? anyway, something raptor-ish - swoop around, although I could have lived without seeing the decapitated pigeon one left on the Boston Common. And a few years ago, I saw a magnificent hawk perched on a mound of snow that had accumulated in the bed of a pickup truck. I was walking on Brookline Avenue, and there it was, just a few feet away from me, stopped at a red light.

I love seeing hummingbirds gathering nectar. (They're so tiny: how do they survive?)

I love watching starlings swirl around in their intricate murmurations. (Yes, I had to look it up.)

I used to love to hear woodpeckers pecking away in the woods next to our house when I was growing up.

I just plain love crows.

On the other hand, seagulls and pigeons...

Not to mention the stalking, terrifying urban wild turkeys that abound in this area. Talk about don't make eye contact. 

And I'm not wild about the idea of birds as pets, especially when they're allowed free range in the house. (It happens.)

But mostly I'm cool with birds.

The most interesting bird sighting I ever had was on a trip to a client in San Antonio, Texas, where I had a hard time looking at the client, given that the tree outside his window was loaded with buzzards.

That and the raptors I've seen a few times at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson, where they have daily free flight raptor shows. Fascinating. 

Despite my genuine disinterested quasi-affection for the bird family, I was a bit taken aback by a headline I saw in the Boston Globe the other day: Are you a good candidate to own a killer bird?

Well, the obvious answer is NO.

Even though I could live quite contentedly without mice, rats, or snakes, and squirrels aren't my jam, I really wouldn't want to own a bird of prey, namely a faclon. So just say no to falconry.

Still, I was intrigued by the Globe article by Billy Baker on what being a falconer is all about.

First off, who knew that you can't just go out and buy a falcon. Instead:

You go out and capture a falcon. That is the law. It’s kinda weird that any of this is legal, and the fact that beginner falconers are required to capture their first bird is definitely one of the weirdest parts. (Source: Boston Globe)

Given how I feel about birds in the house, I wouldn't have been a candidate, but, in fact, you can't keep a falcon as a pet. 

Falconry is an ancient practice, but this is not about having a bird of prey for a pet. That is actually against the law. You can’t just read “Harry Potter” and decide you want an owl, though that does sound cool. Falconry is instead an active hunting partnership, where the bird remains wild the entire relationship, free to take off and not come back.

"Active hunting partnership?" The only active hunting partnerships I've been been part and partner of was when I used to haunt the Bonwit Teller sales in Filene's Basement. 

The falcons generally do come back. That's because they're trained to do so. And because it's in there self interest to have a human assist the falcon when they're on the hunt. The falconer may, quite literally, beat the bushes, rousting out mice, voles, chipmunks, and whatever else is in there, making it that much easier for the falcon to find prey. 

But there's more to this than capturing a falcon and start beating the bushes for them. Becoming a falconer is a long and complex process.

First you have to check off a painfully complicated list of legal requirements designed to discourage all but the most serious applicants. MassWildlife, the state’s conservation agency, reports that lots of people make inquiries about the licensing process each year, but only one or two become a licensed apprentice allowed to capture a bird. For that to happen, you must first pass a 100-question exam. Then you need to build a dedicated shed, known as a “mews,” to house the bird and the required gear, all of which must be inspected by Erik Amati, the state’s falconry coordinator, which is an actual job title. And finally, and most challengingly, you need to find a licensed falconer willing to sponsor you for the required two-year apprenticeship, and there are only 48 of them in Massachusetts.

I'm not generally someone who carps about where her tax money goes, but given that only one or two falcon apprentice licenses are issued each year, and that there are only 48 licensed falconers in the state, I'm sure hoping that "falcon coordinator" isn't a full-time, full-time paid position.

But once you do become a real, post-apprentice falconer, there's plenty of things you can do. 

Well, then you can buy your next bird — including owls! Or you can keep capturing them, or you can get a license to breed them, or you can become a mentor, or you can leave them alone and get a pair of binoculars and just look at them.

Which you can do without being a licensed falconer. So I'll stick with that. That an seeing if I can spot a Ford Falcon when I'm out and about. They're rarer than the hawks I see
regularly.  

DP's

My German grandparents, toddler (my mother) in tow, immigrated in the 1920's.

A lot of their landsmann also came over. One of my grandfather's brothers (he had a raft of them) sponsored my mother's family, bringing them over to join him in Chicago. My grandmother also had family in the "new world," but I think most of them were in Canada. The only one of my great-aunts and great-uncles I remember is my grandmother's sister Tante Teresa, who lived in Windsor, Ontario, and would come down to Chicago when we visited there. She also came to Worcester once, with my grandmother. I remember dancing with Teresa at my Aunt Kay's wedding in 1963. 

There was a lot of family in Canada - cousin this, cousin that - who would also sometimes show up in Chicago, including the infamous Kissing Cousin Joe, who, Euro-style, liked to greet men by kissing them. My father and my Uncle Ted - two staunch Irischers - wanted nothing to do with men kissing each other. Ted and Al perfected a stiff arm handshake so that Kissing Cousin Joe couldn't swoop in for a smacker.

Cousin Joe was also famous for his appearance in Chicago for my grandfather's funeral. As the story went, some relatives took it upon themselves to raid my grandfather's closet, and gifted Joe with his overcoat. Cousin Joe was a slight fellow, and was swimming in the coat as he modeled it for the family, back at my grandmother's post burial. "Doesn't Joe look good in Jake's coat?" someone asked. Not!

My grandparents were more prosperous than some other parts of the family, and I'm sure that Jake's coat was a nice one. Still...My grandfather had died suddenly and young, leaving my grandmother a widow at 52, with two young kids still in the house, Kay who was 7 and my Uncle Bob, who was 11. Imagine rifling through my grandfather's closet before my grandfather's body was cold...

I don't know whether Joe actually made off with the coat, but supposedly, Joe et al. also stopped by my grandfather's grocery store to stock up on food before they went back to Windsor, charging their supplies to my grandfather's account. 

Unless I was napping, I would have been a witness, but I wasn't even two and have no recall of this at all. And I have no way of knowing whether any of this actually happened IRL. You know how stories take on a life of their own...

But, Canadian relations aside, I do know there were plenty of cousins around the Chicago area, and they were always part of the scene when we were visiting. One cousin, a youngish guy named George, lived with my grandmother for a while. I can remember what he looked like, but not why he was living with Grandma.

Once when we were at my grandmother's summer house on the lake in the country up towards the Wisconsin boarder, Pete, a youngish cousin who was considered kind of a punk, showed up with some friends and wanted to take my sister Kathleen, my cousin Ellen, and I out for a ride. We were all in our early teens. These guys were 19 or 20. My father and my Uncle Ted chased them off. That was pretty exciting.

And then there were the DPs...

While some of my grandparents' large multitude of siblings had come over, others stayed behind in the old country.

My German family had been pioneers, leaving Swabia (part of what is now Germany) for the outer reaches of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where they farmed in entirely German towns. After the first World War, the borders shifted and, while my mother was born in the same village as her parents had been, she was born in a different country: Romania.

After World War II, it should come as no surprise that the Romanians wanted the Germans out of their country. And so, a lot of my family members became Displaced Persons. I believe that those who had married Romanians were welcome to stay in Romania, and some of them did. But those who had stayed in the tribe and married ethnic Germans were booted out.

Some went back to Germany. (My mother had a cousin she corresponded with.) Some came to the United States. And some of those were sponsored by my grandparents and came to Chicago, where my grandparents, and later my grandmother on her own, put them up in property they owned, and even, temporarily, in their home, a prairie-style bungalow at 4455 North Mozart.

So throughout the 1950s, DP's were in the picture.

Do I actually remember some guy - a cousin? Caspar? - in a Wehrmacht greatcoat with the swastika buttons cut off and replaced with something neutral? Probably not. Other than for my grandfather's funeral (October) we only went to Chicago in the summer, and there ain't no one wearing a greatcoat in Chicago in July. So this may not be a real memory.

But the memory of the cousin with the French wife and the two little French daughters is definitely real. I don't recall his name, or the names of the two little girls in their stiff nylon dresses, but her name was Madeleine. What was their story? Was he stationed in France during the war? Had she consorted with the enemy? Was her head shaved for being a collaborator? Did he somehow stay in France during the war? 

Who knows...

In 1965, bizarrely on the anniversary of her marriage to my grandfather, my mother remarried: a widowed DP. He was from their home town, had served in the German army during the war - he was in his forties; he worked as a surveyor, I believe - and was part of the horde kicked out of Romania. I only met him a few times, but found him to be thoroughly unpleasant. But he was a companion to my grandmother and gave her someone to cook for and squabble with. (He outlived my grandmother, and don't get me going on what rotten, venal a-holes his children turned out to be...)

DPs. 

Do they even use that term anymore? Is there a difference between a refugee and a displaced person?

I look at all the pictures of the Ukrainian refugees.

America is taking 100,000 of them in. Yay, us, I guess. Most European countries are also welcoming Ukrainian refugees, and a lot more proportionately than we are. The stories of Polish and German citizens showing up at train stations with signs indicating how many refugees they can take into their homes is so touching. I cried the other day just reading about a woman in Berlin who had taken a woman, her two kids, and a cat into her home. A flat that had housed a family of 5 a few weeks ago, now had 8 people (plus the cat) living there. The Berlin woman had also reached out to her network and found homes for a number of other refugee families. 

Reminds me of my grandmother...

There's some chat around and about that Americans are more sympathetic to refugees from Ukraine than they are to, say, Syrian or other brown- and black-skinned refugees. There's probably something to that. (There always is.) But I think it's as much that Ukraine (rather than "just" its people) looks like us. Ukraine is a democracy. The streets, the shops, the clothing people wear. It all looks pretty American. Kyiv looks more like an American city than Aleppo does. (Or did before Aleppo was smashed to smithereens.)

And I do have to confess that, when I see pictures of Ukrainian refugees, I think that this is what my extended family - minus the puffer coats and smart phones - looked like, what they went through, what they survived, in Europe in the 1940's.

That's just the way it goes, I suppose.  

Presenting the 2022 Oscar's Swag Bag

I wasn't watching the Oscars the other night, so I missed Will Smith giving Chris Rock the open-handed slap in the face for making fun of Jada Pinkett Smith's alopecia - a slap heard round the world. However mean/lame/stupid/crass/insulting the joke was, I'm not in favor of someone resorting to violence because a comedian made them the butt of their mean/lame/stupid/crass/insulting joke. I suppose we should be glad that Will Smith, who played Muhammed Ali in the movie Ali a while back, didn't use his fist. That might have done some real damage.

Needless to say, social media went bonkers when this went down. I learned about it a minute or so after it occurred when I took at break from watching a couple of episodes of the Netflix series Inventing Anna to glance at my Twitter feed, which I do regularly to check whether Zelensky's still alive and whether Trump's been indicated. (Inventing Anna is a a quasi-fictionalized accounting of the life and times of Anna Delvey, a Manhattan scam artist and fashion icon who conned a lot of very important people into believing she was a German heiress. The show is goofy but entertaining. Sort of like the Oscars, in that respect.)

All sorts of people are weighing in on whether Will Smith was being "chivalrous" - what a word! - or should have been arrested, or at least thrown out of the Oscar audience. Which means he wouldn't have been there to win his Best Actor Award for playing Richard Williams, father of tennis greats Venus and Serena in the biopic King Richard. (The Academy is still trying to figure out what to do about Smith's non-Best Actor performance; Chris Rock has declined to press charges.)

Lost in all this shuffle was the one thing I do like to focus on when it comes to the Academy Awards: the contents of the annual swag bag.

This is a bag o' loot that those nominated for major awards get to take home, either in addition to their statue, for folks like Will Smith, or as a consolation prize for those who didn't get called to the podium and get to make an acceptance speech, in which the flap-happy Smith said "I want to be a vessel for love." Well, he could have started by not slapping Chris Rock, but maybe he meant moving forward. 

Anyway, this is the 20th year that Distinctive Assets, the marketing company owned by the brilliantly named Lash Fary - can this possibly be his real name? was he named for cowboy actor Lash LaRue, who was never nominated for an Oscar? - has come up with a bag stuffed full of goodies that make sure that everyone - at least everyone nominated for the big awards (best actor/actress, best supporting actor/actress, best director) - goes home a winner. 

The bag is always "worth" a lot - this year it's valued at $140K - and the giftees need to pay tax on it, so it's a mixed bag for the giftees. (For those whose wares are included in the bag, it's a great marketing ploy.) But I'm guessing you don't need to pay taxes on a $50K stay at a castle in Scotland if you don't actually stay there. 

That $50K Scots vakay covers three nights at Turin Castle. 

Guests who accept the offer will have full access to the 17th century castle, complete with butler service and a bagpiper welcome when they arrive. (Source: CNBC)

Alas, this gift was donated in anticipation that Denzel Washington might win Best Actor for playing MacBeth. Instead of MacBeth doth coming, it was Will Smith as Richard Williams. 

The castle stay wasn't the only Scotland-themed gift. Winners also found the deed to a small plot of land in Scotland in their bag, along with a Lord or Lady title. 

Baggers will be able to take advantage of:

A $12,000 “Celebrity Arms” liposuction procedure from cosmetic surgeon Dr. Thomas Su...[And] up to $10,000 worth of “treatments and rejuvenation procedures” from Dr. Konstantin Vasyukevich...[And] a $1,200 life coaching session with wellness expert Kayote Joseph.

Maybe next year's bag will include some anger management classes.  

For those who don't want to travel to Scotland, there's a $15K four-night stay at a luxury resort/spa in California. I suppose you could stay there while Maison Construction works on the $25K worth of home renovations they're providing. I'm guessing that $25K worth of renovations doesn't go very far in Hollywood - maybe a closet do-over? - so four days away from home for the project to be complete should do it. 

There are a number of smaller items including tea, "gold-infused" olive oil, popcorn, kids' books, a few toys, and:

Anti-aging supplements from spermidineLIFE 

Spermidine? I'd just as soon age. 

Deluxe salad-infused skincare kit 

 Salad-infused skincare? What???? And does one use it in conjunction with the spermidine?

Limited-edition set of Trust Me Vodka bottles

Trust me, I would never accept a drink from someone who offered to make me a Cape Codder using Trust Me Vodka. 

I didn't see it on any list, but in a picture I saw of the gift bag contents, there was an inflatable orca from PETA with "Seaworld Blows" written on it.

Not sorry I missed the Oscars. Not sorry I missed Chris Rock's joke. Not sorry I missed Will Smith's reaction to it. And even though the thought of getting my arms liposuctioned into celebrity shape, not sorry I didn't get a swag bag.

What's in MY "wallet"? No crypto, that's for sure.

When it comes to cryptocurrency, I'm squarely in the skeptics corner. I do believe that, with the world - make that the metaverse - increasingly going all digital, money is increasingly treated as a digital asset, more or less. And it will eventually be regulated by banks and governments - not by bitcoin wild-westerners. 

But a lot of folks are getting into it, mostly for speculative purposes, hoping that crypto alchemy will let them spin nothing into solid gold. (And don't get me going on the celebs getting in the act by touting crypto. Looking at you, Tom Brady, Matt Damon, Larry David, Reese Witherspoon, Kim Kardashian...)

While crypto madness rages on with all the on-raging of the South Sea Bubble and Tulip Mania, it's no surprise that adjacent businesses are spring up. One such business is crypto-hacking. This service is used by those who purchased crypto and have it stored in a "wallet." But unfortunately, they've lost the super-secret password that will get them into that "wallet" - which plenty of crypto holders want to do so that they can turn their crypto into some real money. (What's the opposite of "hard earned?") And unfortunately, the Dick Tracy decoder ring they inherited from their great-grandfather isn't doing them any darned good. 

(I actually don't know how the keys/passwords/authentication works with crypto, and I'm not interested enough to figure it out. Not sure if a private key gets generated when you buy in - some long, non-memorizable combo of letters and numbers and/or whether you set your own password (as in password1234). I'm pretty sure it's the former, but you might be able to set up two-factor authentication for yourself. Belt and suspenders!) 

Anyway, it's estimated that there may be $140.7 billion in funds "stranded" in wallets. (Given the crypto market volatility, that amount may be up or down on any given day.)

If you're the owner of part that over-under $140.7 billion, and you want it back, who you gonna call? 

You might give a holler to Chris and Charlie Brooks of Crypto Asset Recovery of Durham, New Hampshire.

Chris and Charlie are a father-son duo. Their involvement in crypto wallet cracking began in 2017:

Chris, 50, who previously ran a furnace comparison website and worked as a tech executive for a nursing home ratings platform in Wellesley, was intrigued by bitcoin, knowing he wanted to start a business around it. His first attempt at the password-hacking business fizzled. But a little over a year ago, as bitcoin values shot up, demand increased, prompting him to resurrect the venture.

This time, his son Charlie, 20, a self-described “tech nerd” wanted in, deciding to drop out of the University of Vermont, where he studied computer science.(Source: Boston Globe)

They've set up a division of labor. Chris, as befits a fellow with the imagination to have held senior positions at a furnace comparison website and a nursing home ratings platform, is in charge of sales and marketing. Charlie is in charge of the hacking. 

They get paid a percentage of the value of the crypto they recover. Their take for the first 10 bitcoin recovered is 20%. After that, a sliding scale kicks in. 

Sometimes - about 30% of the times - they win; sometimes they don't even break even.

It took them 20 minutes to help out a Chicago day trader hack into her wallet, where they recovered $150K worth of 6 bitcoin. Their cut wasn't bad. And it wasn't bad for the day trader either, who'd paid less than $500 for her bitcoin trove back in 2013. (Not that I would ever have done so, but despite my feelings about crypto, I'm kinda sorta wishing that I'd laid out $500 for some back in the day. Of course, I would no doubt have long misplaced the key to my wallet...)

They made a less successful attempt to recover what was variously estimated to be worth $44M (initial estimate) and - wait for it - $3.2B (later estimate).

Apparently, three men in Georgia — a strip-mall magnate, a farmer, and a former Navy SEAL — won the digital wallet in a bankruptcy case. But they had one big problem: They didn’t know the key code to unlock the funds. 

A strip-mall magnate, a farmer, and a former Navy SEAL walk into a bar...Oh? You've already heard this one?

This treasure hunt involved a trip to Savannah and 10 hours spent trying to crack the code. Which they did succeed in doing. Alas, it turned out that all that was in the wallet was worth $10. At 20%...

The Brooks-es chalked that one up to experience. 

“It’s the wild, wild West out there,” Chris Brooks said. “Crazy things do happen.”

Predictably, because it is the wild, wild West, there are plenty of scammers out there. Recovery companies, like the Brooks' outfit, need to make sure that their clients are on the up and up.

In tricky situations, such as when cryptocurrency wallets are at the center of a divorce proceeding or estate dealing, they work with their lawyer to determine whether the person wanting to hack into the wallet actually has ownership of it. 

Good luck to Chris and Charlie Brooks. After the thrill of bitcoin, I'm sure it would be tough to get back into the furnace comparison biz. 

But mostly all I can say is, it's one crazy world, and we just live in it. 

Peak Worcester!

My hometown of Worcester is a lot of things.

The second largest city in New England - and possibly the largest city in the United States that most people have never heard of - the Heart of the Commonwealth is home to a number of colleges and universities. Clark. Holy Cross. WPI (never called by its full name: Worcester Polytechnic Institute). Assumption. So Worcester is sort of a college town. Only it doesn't feel like one.

Worcester is also the home of UMass Medical School, a major medical center, and growing biotech and pharma industries. Plus Worcester was the home of Dr. Robert Goddard, whose rocketry in the 1920's laid the groundwork for the space age. So Worcester is sort of a science-y town. Only it doesn't feel like one.

It certainly wasn't the case when I was growing up there, but Worcester has a number of great restaurants. Part of this is the coming of age of interesting and varied restaurants. Mostly, in the old days (in Worcester and most every other place in the country), dining out meant baked stuffed shrimp, London broil, or chicken parm. But now the words "Worcester" and "foodie" are uttered in the same breath. So Worcester is sort of a dining destination town. Only it doesn't feel like one.

Worcester, to me, will always feel like the blue collar, three-decker, ethnic Catholic, no pretension burg it was when I lived there - now more than 50 years ago. 

My sense of Worcester is, of course, colored by where I grew up: a blue collar, three-decker, ethnic Catholic, no pretension neighborhood. And while I haven't lived there in, like, 4EVA, my sense of Worcester is that its fundamental "brand" (sorry about that) is just that. The men in the hood (most women didn't work outside the house back then; too busy with large families) worked in factories - there was a lot of manufacturing in Worcester back in the day, they were plumbers, carpenters, firefighters, cops, welders, etc. We had some "white collar" folks. My father, who had been promoted from shop foreman in a wire factory to the job of salesman, was one of them. 

Thus, reading about comedian Jimmy Cash confirms my sense of Worcester.

Not that, until I saw an article on him in the paper, I was familiar with this work - if someone asked me to name a comedian, the first name to pop into my head would probably be the late George Carlin - but Jimmy Cash has a lot of gigs around the New England area, and has ventured as far south as Florida. He posts popular videos on TikTok. And according to his website, "he is the recent winner of Last Comix Standing 2021, held at Mohegan Sun." 

And he's not the only comedian to hail from Worcester. Although he's often referred to as being from Boston, Denis Leary is actually a Worcester boy. (My sister was a couple of years behind him in high school.) 

What make Jimmy Cash such a Worcester guy is not that he does comedy. It's that his day job is school janitor. (Forgot to mention earlier that one of the dads on my street growing up was a school custodian.) And Jimmy Cash is keeping that day job - at least for now. 

By day, Jimmy Cash can be found collecting trash from classrooms, picking up in the cafeteria, and pushing a mop and bucket through the long corridors of the elementary school where he works as a custodian.

But once class is dismissed and he clocks out for the day, Cash trades in his squeegees and disinfectant sprays for bright lights and microphone stands, entertaining crowds at comedy clubs across the region. (Source: Boston Globe)

Cash, a second generation school custodian, has been cleaning schools since he was twenty. He's now 38. 

And while he grew up dreaming about Saturday Night Live and Adam Sandler, there's also this:

“I always say that the janitor job is my dream job, and I just do stand-up to bring myself back down to earth,” he said. 

Most people would, I suspect, have this the other way around, with the cleaning work - which is the prime source of his humor - being what brings them "back down to earth." But that's Worcester for you.

And being a janitor is a good job. Nothing glamorous, but a steady paycheck and, since they work for the city, the benefits are probably good. (Worcester custodians are part of the Laborers Union. Oddly enough, my Uncle Charlie - dead now nearly 50 years - was the shop steward for a City of Worcester Laborers local. Just not for the school custodians. At his wake, the first person in the door was Joe Tinsley, Worcester's mayor at the time. Not to mention the uncle of my closest friend from high school.)

It's a good job, and Jimmy Cash (by the way, that's a stage name taken from his high school nickname) is apparently pretty good at it: 

“He’s very special to our school; very well-respected. He’s just loved by all the kids,” said Kristy Desimone, a fifth-grade teacher who works at his school. “Besides his work ethic — and his sense of humor — I think it’s his heart. Students need to make connections with people and I think they really find that they can make a connection with him.”

He's also pretty good at comedy. (I watched a YouTube and a couple of TikToks).

Even if stardom comes, he doesn’t plan on straying too far from his humble beginnings.

“Maybe I’ll do a little side cleaning,” he said. “Keep a little mop handy.”

Always happy when a Worcesterite makes good, I'm hoping that stardom does come for Jimmy Cash.

Meanwhile: the janitor/comedian: PEAK WORCESTER!