Wow, a lot of people grouse about New Jersey. Constantly. It's too congested. The taxes are too high. Everything is so expensive. All of these statements are true. But there is one distinct advantage to living in New Jersey: we are dead center in the Northeast megalopolis. That giant, connected city that runs from Boston to [...]
Where is the modern Algonquin Round Table where artists and thinkers from a variety of disciplines come together to discuss big ideas? Where are the coffeehouses of Vienna where the likes of Jung, Freud, Zweig, Klimt, Loos and Adler would get together and toss about some bon mots? Where are the non-fiction Central Perk, Cheers or [...]
Path Dependence is a fancy way of saying, "We have always done it this way." It is defined by the Business Dictionary as, "Tendency of a past or traditional practice or preference to continue even if better alternatives are available." Examples of Path Dependence include the QWERTY keyboard, Microsoft Word (if you are going to [...]
I recently received an email request for a donation to the Appraiser Prosperity Coalition. I was not familiar with the organization, but I took some time to read up on who they are and what they are trying to accomplish. What I found was a group of well meaning residential mortgage appraisers fighting their latest [...]
When we were kids in the 1970s our dad brought us out to lunch at the Rum Runner restaurant in Sea Bright on Christmas Eve Day. The Gagliano Family hosted the big Christmas Eve Dinner, so dad took us out to give mom a respite. We were a bit of a handful in those days. [...]
It is sometimes astonishing how often human beings fail to learn from history. For example: This Monday's Wall Street Journal featured an article entitled, Dodgy Home Appraisals Are Making a Comeback. The article by Annamaria Andriotis opens, "Home appraisers are inflating the value of some properties they assess, often at the behest of loan officers [...]
Bradevelt. The name popped into my mind, unbidden, while I was shoveling snow. This is unusual, because I usually spend my time inventing new curse words while I am shoveling snow. In New Jersey in general, but certainly on the Jersey Shore, place names have some unique history. From what I understand, at one time [...]
We’re slightly off. 23.5 degrees off, actually. By some accounts, 4.5 billion years ago a Mars-sized object collided with earth, breaking off the moon and knocking the earth sideways. But were it not for this slight tilt, the equator would be an uninhabitable inferno, and the temperate zones that most people live in would not [...]
The housing market is making a comeback. Hard to miss after seven straight years of grinding losses. Perhaps you have noticed a pattern. Certain areas come back first, and often don’t lose as much value as other areas. The answer is often in the land itself. The first settled and built areas were first settled [...]
Gratitude makes everything better because gratitude, without fail, serves to improve our attitude. And isn't our attitude what really matters? How many apparently unhappy people do you see driving very expensive cars? Or complaining that their soup is too cold? Or too hot? How many times do we grumble about our lot in life just [...]
It is always refreshing, that moment of clarity. The National Park Service, perennially starved of money, is looking for private partners to help restore some Jersey Shore architectural gems. Sandy Hook, a spit of land in extreme northeastern Monmouth County between the Atlantic Ocean and Sandy Hook Bay, was known as Fort Hancock and served [...]
Apropos of my recent post, A Better Way to Preserve Historic Properties, it came to my attention that many historic properties are donated. And that's good, right? Maybe not. While I don't doubt the generosity of the donors, most of these deals are burdensome in the long run, and probably should not be pursued by [...]
My hometown of Little Silver bought the Parker Homestead some years ago, just a few doors down from my house. The homestead consists of a house and several barns. Preserving the historic site, which dates back to the 17th Century, was a pet project of our late Mayor, Suzanne Castleman. She and her husband Don [...]
