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I’ve been writing this blog regularly every week for more than ten years.  Frankly, I’m delighted that during that entire ten-year period, through Covid, vacations, and illness, I’ve never missed a posting.

So, what have I done to celebrate the final week of the “old” year?  Yesterday I visited the Lucid car dealership in Century City and bought a new car, to be delivered to my home tomorrow afternoon.

I’ve been told that the best time to buy a new car is on the last day or two of a month.  The theory is that the auto manufacturers, in their unending quest to sell as many cars as possible, tend to give the best rebates for sales at the end of the month.  I don’t know if that’s true, but it is my working hypothesis.

For the past eight years I’ve been driving a Tesla, which has been fine, but a few weeks ago I experienced a new “first”.  I changed lanes without looking and, lo and behold, there was a car next to me in the other lane.  The dealer told me that it would cost about $15,000 for body work to fix my Tesla, and offered to buy it from me “as is” for $23,000.  I figured that was equivalent to a sale for about $40,000 so I accepted their offer.

Like the Tesla, the Lucid is entirely electric and it has a range of almost 400 miles between charges, as compared with a little over a 200-mile range for my Tesla.  But since most of my driving is to and from work, a total of about six miles, I don’t think that will be an issue.

So, if you’re in need of a new car, or a final year-end celebration, you can visit your nearest Lucid dealership.  I’m sure they have another four or five (thousand) cars available that they would love to sell today.

But for those who do not intend to celebrate with the purchase of a new car, I encourage you to look back on all you’ve accomplished over the past year. Give yourself credit and take a moment to celebrate what you’ve achieved. As for me, here’s to another year of writing this blog every week in 2025.

Happy New Year!

Alan

At 3:07 pm on Monday Daveen called me.

“Are you writing your blog for tomorrow?” she asked.

Oops.

My assistant Zatesia, who posts my blogs, is on vacation this week, so no one until Daveen even asked.  And over the years I’ve found that during the weeks of Christmas and New Years Day we complete much less business in my office than during the other 50 weeks of the year.

‘No, I forgot,” I said to Daveen, just as I was planning to leave my office for a Christmas cookie decoration party at our stepson Randy’s house.

Normally a blog takes me almost an hour to write, and about half that to edit after my “real” editor, Nancy, takes a look.

But today because I really do have a date with some cookies, this blog is going to be shorter than most.

In fact, here it is:

Merry Christmas!!!

Alan

P.S. The photo is one of my fingers typing my blog.

Yesterday’s rainstorm reminded me of a Saturday morning years ago.

I was working alone in my office, which used to be my Saturday hideout because I could accomplish a lot more than on a weekday when I’d be constantly bombarded with questions.

Our office building badly needed a new roof. For nine months we’d waited for a day when we were absolutely certain it wouldn’t rain. The weather service had confirmed — no rain for a week. So, on Thursday we had torn off the old roof which was scheduled to be replaced on Monday. But no one told the weather gods.

As I sat at my desk, I heard the sound of a light drizzle. For ten minutes there were no leaks, it seemed the plywood underneath where the roof used to be was holding, so I relaxed. And then, rainwater started to drip from the ceiling onto my desk.

I immediately called Daveen.

“Please bring to the office as many bowls, and pots and pans as you can. The roof is leaking.”

A few minutes later the roofers unexpectedly arrived, bearing the gift of tarps as a temporary cover. Their thought was good. Their execution — not so much. The roof leaked anyway.

The ceiling in my office was ruined, as was the carpet. As was my bank account after the repair work.

I resolved that in the future I wouldn’t rely on a newspaper weather report to decide when it would be a good time to rip the roof off of one of the many apartment buildings we managed.

Even so, for years I dreaded rain because, well, roofs don’t leak when it’s not raining, and I had experienced too many $30,000 rains.

If it had merely rained actual cats and dogs I wouldn’t have needed to do as much work to repair my office building.

Meow and Woof!

Alan