Cargo container loaded with Doritos washes up on shore after nor'easter

You might think that this post is about the gorgeous 78 degree weather we had on the Outer Banks today on the last day of November. Or about our golden beaches glistening in the sunshine. Or even about our golden sunsets over the Sound. But no – today’s little bit of gold refers to a cargo container that washed up on the shore yesterday and, like a beached whale, regurgitated hundreds of bags of Doritos.

Local residents rush to pick up bags of chips from the beach

Apparently Frito Lay says that the word “Dorito” means “A Little Bit Of Gold” in Spanish, although I speak Spanish and that’s “a Little Bit Of A Stretch.” But judging by the hordes of people scurrying along the beach stuffing plastic grocery bags full of nacho, sour cream and onion, and jalapeno flavored chips, you would have thought they had struck gold. And maybe, in a way, they did.

Just a week ago we suffered through an angry nor’easter that damaged oceanfront homes and carried away more of our precious beach. A good friend of mine lost the ground floor of his place, his septic system, and the entire dune in front of his oceanfront cottage. Normally, a cargo container that falls off a ship plying the merchant lanes near our shores would have sunk to the bottom. But undoubtedly, the nor’easter’s thrashing waves are responsible for carrying that container from the deep water to the shallower sand bars near shore, where it inexorably inched toward the beach. Read the rest of this entry »

Damage along the Beach Road in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, following a nasty nor'easter

It’s definitely time to get out of here. We just had a two day nor’easter over the Thanksgiving weekend that brought a tree down across my driveway, forcing me to walk 600 feet to the house in the pouring rain and 70 mile per hour winds. The outside world doesn’t realize that nor’easters are so much more destructive than hurricanes. Take a look at the photo below. That’s not soapsuds on the road, it’s sea foam whipped up by the angry ocean. The storm-driven waves then breached the dunes along the Beach Road, flooding the houses adjacent to the beach and leaving tons of sand and debris in their wake. Soon this will be something I don’t have to deal with any more – just another four weeks until I head south to sunny Sarasota, Florida.

One of my best friends, Elizabeth, has been studying astrology for years. I think she’s made it her personal mission to educate me on the subject, and to that end she is always sending me links to astrology websites and excerpts from monthly astrological forecasts. Now, I’m not a stranger to the concept of astrology – in fact I’m a pretty strong believer. After all, any emergency room worker will tell you that they have more and weirder cases whenever the moon is full. If the full moon can make people go crazy as well as affect the tides, it’s not much of a stretch for me to believe that all the planets affect us in some way. So, like a million other people in the world, I always read my horoscope in the paper. Heck, I’ll even admit that I actually paid good, cash money once (OK, maybe twice ‘er, maybe three times) to have my astrological chart done for the moment of my birth.

My problem is that when Elizabeth sends me these links and articles, they are not simply a horoscope for the day. They are about the positions of the planets and the arc of their intersecting points across the heavens and this transit and that house and something called Mercury Retrograde. OK, let’s get something straight; my brain is not puny. I’ve got fairly strong cognitive and language skills and I’m no slouch in the business world. But this astrology stuff puts me down for the count. I read it, then read it again, and STILL I can’t figure out what it is saying.

The only thing I have come to understand is that three times a year, for about three weeks each time, the planet Mercury goes retrograde, meaning that it appears to move backward in the sky. The operative word here is Read the rest of this entry »

I sell real estate. I’ve been doing that for the past 10 years on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It’s not my profession of choice – I just sort of fell into it (you can read more about that on my “About” page). But it’s been good to me and I’ve invested in property here and there.

1870's era house in Old Town Key West has been converted to three apartments

One of my more recent projects is an old house (circa 1870) in Key West that I bought this past July. Over the years it has been a single residence, a church, a school, and eventually it was converted to its current configuration of three legal apartments. The place has been uglified over the years – old metal shutters installed across the front and the exterior painted a pale pink that has long since faded to nothing. But where others saw ugliness, I saw opportunity.

Since I’m retiring from real estate and leaving the Outer Banks at the end of the year anyway, the plan was to sell my home here and use the proceeds from that sale to restore the exterior of the Key West property to its former glory – then sell it at a profit. In the meantime, there were existing tenants living in all three apartments (all of whom wanted to stay, according to the Seller), so I would be receiving income from the property while I restored it. Read the rest of this entry »