October 13, 2020

by drplasticpicker

One of my favorite bloggers is LenPenzo. He’s one of the original personal finance bloggers and sometimes writes nonsense and talks a lot about the gold standard. He’s from Southern California as well, and represents a conservative financial and political outlook that I’m very comfortable. I grew up in that kind of culture, although I am more politically left now. It’s hard not to be when you take care of children as a pediatrician in an underserved area. But LenPenzo has been blogging forever and he’s still my internet hero. I stop by his blog now and again, and leave comments. Len’s dad passed away recently and he left a short post on his blog https://lenpenzo.com/blog/id63332-black-coffee-10-oct-2020.html.

I try to be a blogger in the LenPenzo school of blogging, just honest and show your personality. There is a specific subset of the population that keeps on reading his blog, and it’s because they like him. You can imagine him typing away at his computer and alternatively doing nice things for his wife who he calls the HoneyBee. One stops by his blog to see what Len’s thinking about the economy and to have “Black Coffee” and talk monetary policy.

Len doesn’t share a lot of personal details of his life on his blog or talk too much about emotion. I think that’s why I like him so much. He’s emotionally well-modulated. But the saddness came through in his post. It’s hard to lose your dad. And this reminded me to call mine today. I’ll call him (and not him via my mom) and see how he is doing. My dad is always busy running his business empire. But he always made time for us as kids on Sunday mornings. I loved sitting at the kitchen table with him on Sunday mornings when we’d sit and read through the entire Sunday edition of the San Diego Union Tribune. We actually had McDonald booths in our house. My dad was already successful back then, but he found them at a fire sale somewhere. He had them reupholstered and installed in our breakfast nook kitchen area. Those McDonald booths were so comfortable. We would sit and have breakfast and chat about life. For my parents, early on affording McDonalds was a big deal. They would stop by and always get #1 or #3 breakfast special. For us, it was a dinner out. When COVID-19 is over I want to go with my dad to McDonalds. It would be fun to sit in those kind of booths together again.