Death Watch
I’ve been keeping an eye on a listing on Ridgebrook Road (near Greenwich Academy) which came on in April for the surprising price of $6,950,000. Surprising because, while it’s a nicely renovated house in a close-to-town location, it didn’t seem – to me – to compare favorably with other houses in that price range. I’ll give the sellers this much: realizing their mistake, they’ve sent the place plunging through the price strata and today it dropped again, to $3,995,000. Is that its final resting place? I bet not, but I’ll report back.

No wonder hedge funds are in trouble – the managers are stupid!
Reuters reports (see link, below) that hedge fund managers are donating huge amounts of money to Obama’s campaign. The “news” service claims that this is a break from the past but I want to research that a bit – its my memory that the Street’s gone Democratic for years. But if the managers of this failing and flailing industry are really supporting a candidate who promises to tax the hell out of the middle class, impose a disastrous national health plan on the country, curtail fossil fuel production and walk away from the Middle East, it’s hardly surprising that they’re also making dumb bets on complicated things like CDOs. Just desserts, says I – remind me to wipe a tear next time another one of them goes belly up.

UPDATE: desserts (which one eats) have two “s’s”, sandy spots just one. I plead guilty on the other error, now corrected.

Boys just wanna have fun
The wiffleball controversy continues and, while yesterday I expressed a certain ambivalence while judging the rights of homeowners to enjoy peace and quiet (as though that exists in crowded Riverside), I was dismayed to read in today’s Greenwich Time that the Boy’s Club has offered to step up to the plate and organize a wiffleball tournament in some other, more suitable location. Yeah, that’s what we need, yet another program structured and run by adults. God forbid we let kids figure out what they want to do on their own.

Meanwhile, I see that the town has just finished erecting a cyclone fence on the corner of the Post Road and Carey Road in Riverside, thus effectively blocking (for now) access to the rope swing over the Mianus. For years (certainly dating back to my childhood in the 60′s and probably long before that) local kids would hang a rope off a big tree on the bank of the river, close to the dam, and everyone in town under 18 would find their way there to swing into the river, scramble atop the dam and, in general, cool off and have fun. The cops would show up occasionally to cut down the swing and chase us off the roof of the pump house on the other side of the river (great jumping spot) but a replacement would be found, always.

Now they’ve gone and fenced off the path to the swing. I’m sure resourceful kids don’t need my help but I may just drop off a huge pair of bolt (and fence) cutters that remain from my own misspent youth.