Soup's on

Where to start, where to start. Alright, let’s start here.

Ask anyone who knows me, and they’ll tell you: I have opinions. Sometimes I even have them on things that really don’t require them.

”Why are you putting the mugs in the cabinet like that?”

Also, throughout my life, it’s fair to say I’m no stranger to protesting vigorously for many worthy causes, against injustice and for legislative reform to name a few. I’ve peacefully marched, chanted, waived my sign and sat-in along with thousands of like-minded people to help sway public sentiment to the cause, whatever the cause happens to be.

Here’s the not-so-secret to protesting: you want to convert people to your side, not turn them against you. And your tactics need to reflect that. As I’ve said in every ad agency I’ve ever worked in, it ain’t brain surgery.

So when an environmental group decides to protest by hurling soup at the most famous artistic treasure in the world, the Mona Lisa, or protesters block the 101 freeway in downtown Los Angeles at rush hour—preventing parents from picking up their kids, ambulances from getting patients to hospitals and tow trucks from removing stalled vehicles that were already blocking traffic—it occurs to me the organizers might not be making the statement they think they’re making.

And if you’ve ever driven the 101 at rush hour, you know they’re not swaying anyone to their side by blocking it.

I said it up top. I’m all for protest and free expression. But if you're keeping score, the brain trusts that planned these particular displays did zero for their causes and a hundred per cent in making people hate them and not even care what it was all for.

There are far too many serious issues in the world that need to be addressed. The reason you protest in the first place is there are forces fighting and working against you.

Maybe it’d be more helpful to not fight and work against yourself.

Compound interest

For reasons unknown, I seem to be a magnet for neighbors that are, shall we say, less than ideal. It wasn't always that way. When we first moved into our house, we had great neighbors - and great relationships with them - on both sides of us.

But time and circumstances change. Over the last sixteen years, the house to our left has sold twice, the house to our right five times.

I know what you're thinking - maybe it's us. Trust me, it's not.

I won't go into the all the gory details, but I'll go into a few of them. The neighbors to the left started their relationship by calling the police on us (when I politely asked one of their workers to take his equipment off my property), had their lawyer send us a letter telling us to stop harassing said workers, then served me to appear in small claims court because they didn't believe the property line was where I said it was, so they paid for a survey to find out.

SPOILER ALERT: It was exactly where I said it was. And they dropped the suit, which they were guaranteed to lose for any number of reasons.

Fast forward. The fence they built on their side of the line is great, and while no one's coming to either house for coffee, we now have a cordial smile-and-wave relationship with them.

The neighbors to the right bought the house, spent a year gutting it and redoing the yard and swimming pool. In the process, they cleared all the growth that had blocked our garage on that side, and built a cement deck and attached it to our garage wall. Which they also painted to match their house.

Needless to say, this didn't go over to well with us. We have since come to an agreement, which they've broken twice at last count. Let's just say nothing good comes of building on and painting someone else's property.

However everyone now agrees on the property line, and, with our tenuous agreement in place, we'll use the strategy of waiting them out.

All of this is to explain why I've become a huge fan of the compound way of living. You know, the Kennedy compound? The Bush compound? I'm all for it.

Sure, to some owning your own six-acre piece of oceanfront property with homes that house only friends and family may seem like a rich indulgence. But if you've lived with the neighbors we have, surrounding yourself with people you know and trust seems like, oh, what's the word, oh yes - heaven.

So I'll continue to invest heavily in stocks, bonds and lotto - mostly lotto - and hope that I hit it big one day. Big enough to either buy and build my own compound, or start snapping up the homes on my block as they go up for sale.

Like I pray every day the one on my right will soon.

The Perfect Storm

Looking east

Looking west

Not usually one to post about the weather, but I must admit the way the sky looked on my block at sunset yesterday has brought out my inner Al Roker (yes, all of you who thought I was actually a bald, black man with glasses were right).

As you can see, the contrast between clear skies to the east, and the gathering, nuclear-glow looking storm to the west was quite spectacular. It was hard to tell whether to break out the deck chairs or the lead shields.

While the family and I were having dinner on our patio, it started to rain. Warm weather, crisp, fresh rain.

Not only the perfect storm. The perfect dessert.