Financial Samurai

My mother is a white cloud.  Every time I see her, she smiles even bigger than I can ever smile.  She loves to talk stories about any of life’s teachings she’s discovered, and I generally just keep quiet and listen.  Sometimes I don’t understand everything she says, but that’s OK.  It makes me happy just knowing she’s happy imparting wisdom onto me.

One of the holiday presents I got my father was a signed copy of Andre Agassi’s autobiography, “OPEN.”  To me, the book was gold, because Andre is my idol.  It was my only copy, and I decided to give it to my father because I remember him loving to read and enjoying the game long ago.

When my father opened his present, he did thank me and showed his appreciation.  However, a week later, the book still lay on the coffee table unread.  Somewhat dismayed that Agassi was being ignored, I spoke to mom about perhaps taking the book back since I cherished it so much.  She mentioned her unused Barnes & Nobles gift card and had an idea.

Later that evening, my parents went to the Mall for date night without us.  Apparently, Carl’s Junior had a two-for-one special and my father was just dying to go!  When they returned, my mother brought me over to the kitchen and told me, “Shhhhhh, take a look at the book.  I bought another copy of “OPEN” and swapped it with your signed copy, so you can take it home!  Dad will never know!” We laughed so hard it hurt and gave each other high fives!  My mom was right, dad never found out.  Mom, who knows very little about tennis, was encouraged by my enthusiasm she even read “OPEN” before dad!

LESSON LEARNED Read more…

If there’s one thing I’m consistent at, it’s making some stupid error at least once a year. One of the classic errors happened my first year out of college. One of the IT guys and I were good friends, always winding each other up and cutting each other down. He sent out a department-wide e-mail saying the systems would be off for the weekend, therefore nobody should bother coming into work.

Instead of clicking “Reply”, I mistakenly clicked “Reply All” and wrote, “Isn’t this why you have a job? So you can fix my computer and we can work all weekend? Who hired you anyway?!” As soon as I sent the e-mail, paralysis took hold.  I was mortified!

With my head tucked low, I immediately walked into my supervisors office and apologized profusely. “I am a complete bumbling idiot! I can’t believe I was so careless and stupid. I’m such a fool. Please forgive me!” I think I may have shed a tear, but I don’t recall exactly.

To my surprise, my manager laughed, and told me not to worry about it, and to go back to my desk. “No big deal Sam, don’t be too hard on yourself!  Didn’t realize how much you enjoyed busting people’s chops!”

Phew, bullet dodged.

DARN, ANOTHER ERROR Read more…

Rock Balancing in San Francisco

After my parents pep talk in the 9th grade, I realized there were two things I had to do in order to survive high school: 1) use my brains and 2) develop some pythons.  In other words, getting good grades, joining student government, and being a history buff wasn’t enough.  Sure, I may have an easier time getting into some fancy college, but how was I supposed to get into girls?  “Hey pork chop, did you know that General Lee surrendered on April 9, 1865, marking the end of The Confederacy and the Civil War?  Lez go out tonight!”

“Girls, Girls, Girls” by Motley Crue played incessantly in my head at the time.  Frankly, I can’t imagine it being much different for a lot of other teenage boys.

I made it a rule to balance the mental with the physical by playing sports.  As a teenager,  I had a strong fear that I was going to be stuck in nerdom if I didn’t.  I was a study machine who needed balance.  The sports that attracted the most groupies were football and basketball, but I was too chicken sh*t to bang down low.  I chose tennis instead, which had decidedly less groupies.  Good thing all you really need is one!

In the 11th grade, this cute girl slipped a note in biology lab with a cut out from Teen Magazine entitled, “You Know Your Boyfriend Is A Keeper If..“.  To my surprise, #1 said: “Your man is the captain of his high school varsity tennis team!“  Shwing!  As captain of the HS varsity team, needless to say we had a frolicking good time….. studying for our biology lab final of course.

THE OLDER THE WISER, PERHAPS Read more…

2009 was the year I rediscovered tennis.  Ironically, I figured I’d better utilize the club as much as possible because I couldn’t afford any other luxuries after the markets imploded!  Just last year, I failed miserably at breaking a 10 handicap (got to 10.2 and ricocheted) in golf and decided to quit before I threw my bag into the lake.

For the past 15 years, I forsook the game I played so diligently as a youngster.  It was boring running around, hitting a ball back and forth.  Now, I’m hooked again because of the camaraderie of the game.  Although tennis is an individual sport, there’s a team aspect to it if you join a league.  Meanwhile, my evil plan is to get my wife to get good enough so we can play some competitive mixed doubles my next summer!

PHYSICAL PROBLEMS MATERIALIZE Read more…

Freddie & MJ At The President's Cup

I had one mission this weekend, and that was to “high-five” as many famous people as possible.  You see, The President’s Cup descended on San Francisco and I was determined to watch America’s best golfers tee it up against the rest of the world, less Europe (that’s the Ryder’s Cup).

Did I succeed in my mission?  It depends on whether you count: Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Anthony Kim, Freddie Couples, Greg Norman, Condoleeza Rice, Gavin Newsom, and Michael Jordan as famous people!  For if you do, you’ll understand why I’m never washing my hands again!

In “Revenge of The Nerds: Golf & Tennis Are #1″, we write that if you want to make a lot of money, you should think about picking up either golf or tennis. As the 30,000+ patrons at Harding Park showed me today, there’s a darn lot of different types of folks interested in golf!  All along the signature par 4, 468 yard, 15th hole you saw corporate tents with names such as: Charles Schwab, PG&E, and Mastercard filled with rich looking patrons sipping their Chardonnay’s.  Ah, to gain access to one of these tents.  Except for Citigroup, it’s good to know there weren’t any government bailed out entities partying it up on our dime, so score one for the common folk! Read more…

Roger Federer Winning Wimbledon

According to Harris Interactive,  the most popular male athlete in America is Tiger Woods, and the most popular female athlete is Serena Williams.  This got me thinking…. hmmmm, America is absolutely obsessed with football, baseball, and basketball and yet golf and tennis are #1!  Since High School, the stereotype has always been that nerds played golf and tennis, and jocks played the other sports.  So, what’s up with this latest poll?

The Financial Samurai theory:

* Whoever controls the most amount of money is the most influential, and therefore, the most popular.   The reason why Tiger Woods makes $100 million a year is because he generates billions in incremental revenue.  Since nerds by definition get better grades,  they may go to better schools  and get better paying jobs.  Therefore, their chances of making more money increases.  More nerds play golf and tennis, and therefore spend more on those sports. Read more…