Oh my goodness

11: 08  Texans 6, Yankees 1. game over series over, Boo, sort of, 4-2 total. I would have at least liked to have seen a game 7.

Funny ad right after the concluding out for Mini-Cooper: “the Yankees are definitely on their way to the World Series. They’re winners and so are we”. Well er, sort of.

How do you sum up a man’s life in a simple obituary?

Mike Finkbeiner alerted me to the death of Charles “Sandy ” Campbell. I knew Sandy as a young, vibrant lawyer back in 1983 – 1988 and, as I told Mike, I was awed by him. He was the nicest guy in the world, and a hugely talented lawyer. I  lost touch with him when I diverted into stock broker fraud and he, I think, left Greenwich for a while, but not so long ago, I needed some sound counsel for a client on a land use matter and tracked him down. He was the same great, gracious  guy I remembered and I had no idea how sick he’d been, and was. You can read his obit to get a brief taste of his contribution to our community, but Sandy far exceeded all that. He was an amazing man.

Oh, whose ox is gored?

Thanks to a tip from reader DogWalker, we learn this about Dr. Weenie, Nicholas Stroumbakis : it seems that now that he’s grown rich from his judgement against us here in Greenwich, he’d like to see caps on medical malpractice suits, especially claims for mental and emotional distress, from which he profited so handsomely.

I hate these cases

Call my banker!

Man struck by tossed softball suing Greenwich for millions. Same lawyer collected $6 million of so for that friggin’ dentist who injured himself sledding and claimed that, afterwards, his peter wouldn’t work. Sure, a box of Viagra would have restored his Willy but a jury, hearing “Greenwich” socked it to us. I’m afraid the same thing will happen here, but what are we supposed to do? Gotta fight the scoundrels.

UPDATE: I did Greenwich dentists a disservice. The sledding plaintiff was a weenie doctor himself, a Nicholas Stroumbakis. Geeze, I sure hope no one in town would patronize him after he ripped us off like this.

Damn those corrupt judges!

Slippery court cancels Heat-Magic game.

Blogger stats

I’m going to get off my lazy a.. and energize a new blog site but in the meantime, here are the latest stats – still hanging in there at about, I don’t know, 8,000 hits a day? Pretty impressive, to me, for a silly blog that was started in spite after Greenwich Post fired me. I now have the same readership daily, from around the world, that I used to have once a week, all located in Greenwich. As a writer, that’s extremely gratifying.

At least she could drive in the HIV lane

Pulled Up sends along this link: Realtor drives around town with dead woman strapped in the passenger seat. The body was down to just 30 lbs by the time the cops found it. This is why I make my clients ride in the back seat with, as Pulled Up suggests, one of those pine tree air fresheners hanging from the mirror.

An aging population of real estate agents

According to this article, the ranks of real estate agents were split evenly in 2000 between agents over and under 40. Now, we geriatrics outnumber the kids by 2:1. So, ya wanna buy a house, you’re probably stuck with someone your parent’s age. That’s not so bad – most of my peers bring a lot of experience from other careers into their practice. I certainly think my years as a young businessman and, later, twenty years of lawyering, helps me in this gig. But, as the article points out, a lot of the codgers don’t know, and don’t want to know, what’s happening in modern technology. They’ll be weeded out pretty soon, though.

30 Husted

30 Husted

A reader asked my opinion of this Husted house that came on Tuesday priced at $18 million. I’m sorry that I couldn’t get to it that day but I was busy with clients in a less rarefied price range. I don’t know: $1,500 per square ft. is above the going asking price these days for 1942 construction, but it has 4.8 acres in the 2 acre zone, sits on a pond and is close to town. Judging solely from its pictures, it looks marvelous. Whether someone will pay $18 million for it remains to be seen. Assessment is around $4.5 million, if you give that number any credence.

I remember this house

This house on Memory Lane (called so, I presume, for the cemetery at its terminus) was a nice little cottage, albeit rundown, when it sold for $1.2275 in 2002. The buyer has fixed it up and is now asking $1.495, which seems okay to me. Memory’s near the Seaton Boy Scout reservation, off of Riversville. It comes with 2 + acres, which is nice.

Paging Juan Williams

Union fires stagehand for refusing to remove shirt honoring the ship his son is serving on, the George (H.W.) Bush.

Price cuts and retreads

Nothing much doing on the activity front, although there are definitely buyers out there looking.

Here’s one they might want to revisit:

8 Maher Avenue

Kind of a dumb price, $3.250, back in ’08.but it’s dropped now to $2.395, which at least is approaching reasonableness. If you like this street and its neighborhood, you could do worse.

48 Partridge Hollow

This one’s been hanging around since 2005, when it was listed for $9.750. It’s now asking $7.595, which was probably a decent price in ’05, but by overpricing it originally, the sellers missed the market and now …? Assessment is around $5, which is where I might start.

Well he’ll never find the real killer now!

Okay then, you guys do it.

Oh, the humanity! O.J. Simpson’s appeal is denied.

Bad schools = bad house prices

I’m just back from a meeting with a reader who wants to sell his house in Cos Cob to get out of a bad school district – apparently the school there performs poorly compared to other schools in town, a gap ranging from 25 (one year) to 10 points (average). What he told me was fascinating, and alarming: his NYC friends are now avoiding Greenwich entirely, because of our lousy test results, and heading for Darien and New Canaan instead.

I don’t know from nothing on our schools, although I did notice a remarkable drop in the quality of reading material my own kids were assigned, but this is serious: everything is on line now, and our traditional feedstock – young New Yorkers just starting families – are prowling the data bases and making decisions on where to live based on the quality of a town’s school system. Those of us who have relaxed, fat and happy, “knowing” that Greenwich has great schools, are in for a rude awakening. And this affects all of us, not just parents of school-aged children. Unless you think you’ll be selling your home to another aging boomer, you – and I – should start worrying about what Greenwich is producing for our $18,000 per pupil.

Remind me why we hire these guys

Town “leaders” faced with politically unpoular cellphone tower issue punt, and decide to hire a consultant so that they can push it off. It was our two Republicans who displayed this profile in courage. Drew Marzullo voted against them. I don’t know – perhaps Drew wanted to vote to kill the project, but at least he stood his ground. My advice is to take the money and run or, failing that, come on down to Ole’s Creek and lease my land.

There will always be an England

It just won’t be anything like what it once was. Cafe owner ordered to remove vent fan because smell of bacon offends muslims.

Does calling Juan Williams “Fox TV’s Lawn Jockey” mark you as a racist?

Yes suh, I be voting for you Demmerkrat bosses, you bet suh

Not if you’re a liberal blogger, because, you know, it’s the conservatives who are the racists! It’s funny: liberals make the most incredibly racist, homophobic comments about those with whom they disagree: Clarence Thomas, Condalisa Rice and Andrew Britebart, for heaven’s sake, who recently posted an amusing video of lefties shouting “faggot!” at him. It’s never an issue because God, and the New York Times, are on their side.

If you haven’t done so yet, check out the link below for how, perhaps, to discuss unpleasant issue. The muslims quoted there were mostly displeased with Mr. Williams’ comment, yet at last one of them admits that he too shares the same fear. All agree that political correctness is blocking off discussion of real issues. The left prefers to toss around racial slurs.

Moderate muslims defend Juan Williams

I’m always complaining about the muslims’ silence, so these comments are refreshing and welcome.

They’ll be heading to Chile next to finish rescue holes A and C

Louisiana still building berms long after the oil has dissipated. Why? Politics.

Er, about those “special interests”

Public Employees union by far the biggest campaign contributor this election. $87.5 million and still spending.