If you reviewed the contents of my SPAM folder for my gmail account, you’d think I was the luckiest person in the world. In just the span of a few days, I appear to have been the beneficiary of several deceased individuals’ estates, be the rightful owner of millions of dollars of unclaimed property and even have received a gift from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. That’s not to mention the unbelievable ‘investment opportunity’ presented by Dr. Owusu Akoto or the generous donation from Mr. Lerynne West who graciously offered me a gift of $1.0mm. And I can certainly retire on the $18.7mm that is due to me from the Central Bank of Nigeria or the $8.0mm from the United Nations. What a week! It makes you wonder why I even come to work.

I write this on October 24, 2021, while cruising along at 35,000 feet above sea level for the first time since February of 2020. That timeframe is the longest stretch without flying in my adult lifetime. While flying is not my favorite thing to do, it is a necessary evil to get from point A to point B. That holds especially true when points A and B are thousands of miles apart from each other. This “maiden voyage” takes me from Bradley Field to warm and sunny Tampa Florida in route to Naples. The weather in CT has been spectacular by October standards but even though it has been nice in CT the weather in Florida is nicer or at least warmer. Also, regardless how nice the weather is in the Nutmeg State, and how beautiful the foliage is this time of year, Florida has palm trees. I love palm trees.

Every year it seems that Halloween gets skipped over, with stores quickly putting out their Christmas and Hanukkah displays, however, I intended on relishing it! Halloween for me is enjoyable because it happens during my favorite time of the year, and it involves some of my favorite things: candy, apple cider, apple crisp, and a day spent at the apple tree farm, which we’ve made a tradition to do every year and this year with Mason, as you saw a couple weeks ago!