The death of Charles Heston was a sad day. Many of us Baby Boomers remember his great acting in movies like The Ten Commandments.

Mary Emma Allen includes some video interviews with Mr. Heston and his wife in her Alzheimer’s Notes blog.

In the video he states, “I can part the Red Sea but I can’t part with you, which is why I won’t exclude you from this stage in my life.” What a classy guy he was.

His disease reminds me of a very interesting book by Sherwin Nuland titled How We Die. The book chronicles the stories of people dying of diseases like Alzheimer’s and cancer, and others dying accidental deaths. The description of the Alzheimer’s death is the most moving and tragic. My daughter-in-law passed it on to me; I wasn’t ready for a while but after my husband’s mom died, I read the whole book. I would urge you to read it.

Tags: Alzheimer’s, baby boomers, Charlton Heston, Ten Commandments

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When my daughter, who is now 26, was 17, my wife took her to work with her.  She actually hired her to be a class room assistant during a summer program for 1st through 3rd graders.  It was a morning program for reading.  My daughter quit after the first week.  Her main complaint was that you had to be nice to them.  Them being the gradeschoolers.  So ended any thoughts that my daughter would follow my wife into elementary education.  Later my daughter worked in a day care center.  That cured her of wanting a huge family.

As my son says, there is plenty of work out there, you just have to be willing to do it.  And further, it always teaches you more than you expected.

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Filed under: Estates

For the next couple of weeks we will be checking out some homes in the most pricey zip codes in the United Says, up this day, 90210 . Thanks to a tiny Aaron Spelling show called Beverly Hills, 90210 about a bunch of privileged high school children this is one of the most recognized zip codes in the U.S. It lives up to its reputation with a median price of $3,109,000 and a healthy appreciation rate of 441% since 1990.

Beverly Hills isn’t uniformly wealthy but it is the area most associated with wealth. World famous Rodeo Drive has help cemented its place as a luxury destination. The area boasts some of the largest homes in the Los Angeles area and as been home to motion picture stars since Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford built Pickfair in 1919. We’ve covered this area of Los Angeles a lot including recently, the homes of Greek playboy Paris Latsis, basketball player Cuttino Mobley and TV host John O’Hurley.

Today’s home is in the gated Beverly Park area, one of the very ideal parts of Beverly Hills, and is located on nearly two acres. The five-bedroom home has a two-story entrance, a huge living room/prjection room area, study, kitchen and family room and a loggia with an outdoor kitchen facing the pool and the guest house. The master suite has dual baths. The listing calls is “the ideal value in the area,” pretty astounding considering it’s listed at $23.5 million.

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Continue reading Most Expensive Zip Codes: 90210, Estate of the Day

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Filed under: Products and services, Small business

Markel Corporation (NYSE: MKL), insurer of specialty properties and real estate, recently acquired Specialized Insurance Inc., which focuses on insurance for service garages at vehicle dealers and gas stations. The move is said to be in keeping with Markel’s intentions to grow this sector of it’s business. Specialized Insurance Inc. already acted as agent for Markel. Financial details of the acquisition remain undisclosed.

Markel has been in the business of insuring specialty properties and other niche markets since 1930. The company issues policies covering everything from archery ranges and railroads to pollution liabilities and paintball tournaments. The company has net annual cash flow from operating activities in excess of 500 million, but that figure has been in annual decline since 2004.

Markel’s major competitors are American International Group Inc.(NYSE: AIG), Chubb Corp. (NYSE: CB), and Travelers Companies Inc. (NYSE: TRV). As a group, shares of the four companies are performing sluggishly with all four holding share value at least 10% below their respective 52-week highs.

Short interest in Markel has been increasing, and is currently at it’s highest point since October 1, 2007. Short interest is reported by AOL Money and Finance to be 2% of float. Markel has 9.94 million shares outstanding with an average daily trading volume of 17k shares.

Institutional interest in Markel Corp is 100%, with the greatest interest being held by Ariel Capital Management with a total of 818,641 shares being held by that company at the time of this research. Current analyst sentiment on the stock is a strong hold.

Gary Sattler is a freelance blogger and holds interest in MKL via Vanguard Group Inc.

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I have been reading about a new book titled Illusions of Entrepreneurship, from Yale University Press (as a matter of fact, I ordered a copy).  In my reading, I ran across a quiz about entrepreneurship.  You really should take this quiz.  It has answers to questions such as:

• Who is likelier to start a new business - a man or a woman?
• What’s the most common reason people start businesses?
• What is the capitalization of a typical new startup?
• What percentage of businesses are “up and running” within 7 years?
• What percentage of 5-year-old businesses are home-based?

You’ll be surprised at the answers.  More on this subject when I receive the book….

Tags: baby boomers, home-based businesses, Illusions of Entrepreneurship, women in business

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