:: The Park Paradigm ::

Markets for the Digital Generation

Despite often espoused (blogging) wisdom, I try mostly to stay on topic and not dilute the (hopefully interesting and insightful!) content stream on markets and such with banal ramblings about my life and what I had for breakfast and such. I figure most of the people who read this aren’t really interested in Frosted Flakes and insofar as I use this platform as an archive of my own thoughts and ideas on markets and financial services and their current and future evolution (and not as a diary or personal journal), I have different (and better adapted) venues to keep track of breakfast foods and other more important personal memories and milestones.

However, feeling somewhat guilty for not having posted much - other than a brief flurry in mid/late January - and even more guilty for not having responded (or even read!) 80%+ of the emails in my inbox since before Christmas - I thought this would be the best venue to explain why and ask for indulgence (and apologize if I’ve missed something really important.) As regular readers will know, late last year I took the big step off the investment banking treadmill with the intention of taking 6-12 months off to hang out with my family, to repair my lamentable physical fitness, to catch up on my reading and maybe in the background make sense of where (from a business point of view) I should point my energies and talents next - perhaps catch a glimpse of the forest and not just feel surrounded by trees…

But given my passion for markets and all the amazing opportunities that seem to arise at an alarming rate and all of the smart and interesting people I have been so fortunate to have been connected to over the past several years, I was wise enough to know that unless I made a clean break for a few months my first two goals would be doomed to remain unfulfilled and my sabbatical so to speak, largely wasted. Over the past decade, I discovered the only time I ever really managed to disconnect with my job and the markets was when I was busy immersed in another passion of mine (and better yet of my family’s) which is skiing and racing. So given all this and the time of year there was only one logical thing to do. Go skiing.

So that’s what I’ve been doing. And it doesn’t leave much time (or more importantly energy) for blogging or emailing or doing much of anything else other than reading, soaking in a hot bath and playing with the kids. The last week in particular was quite intense with lots of racing. I entered a number of FFS races and (in chronological order), this is how I did:

GS 21st
GS 36th
SL Dsq
GS 15th
GS 18th
SL 14th (picture at left from 2nd run)
GS 14th

(for non ski geeks, SL - Slalom, GS - Giant Slalom)

My goal had been to get into the Top 15 and by the end of the week I had managed that. In early March I have another week of racing (a competition I’ve entered every year for the last 10 years) and my stretch goal is to aim for at least one top ten finish, and consistently finish in the top 15. I’ll need to work hard over the next 3 weeks if I’m going to have a chance to fulfill this goal as the competition will most likely be tougher than at last week’s races.

So anyhow, to those of you who have tried in vain to reach me over the past couple months, apologies: I haven’t forgotten you, it’s just that I’m fully focused on goals 1 and 2 (and a poor start to 3) above until at least mid-March. And I’ll try to post a couple times a week - funny thing is out here in the mountains, I’m starting to see the forest very very clearly…

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