Archives

It began on one of those sunny but cold, wintry mornings during the week of Christmas in Watsonville many years ago.

 

For every article I write, I start research on my subject of choice and find I’m always learning something new, or I find the research to be very interesting. This week I’ve been forced to study up on a subject that I didn’t know much about, but only because it was something I was just diagnosed with: multiple myeloma. This is a cancer of the plasma cells which is growing in my bone marrow.

Saturday, June 5

The retirement landscape has dramatically changed over the past several years, with declining retirement accounts, savings accounts and home prices. At the same time, medical costs are rapidly rising, life expectancies are increasing and Social Security benefits are not growing at nearly the same pace as inflation. For many — dare I say most? — tough decisions are at hand about postponing or reformulating a retirement that’s no longer affordable.

Having a ball

 

After dropping from 2006 to 2011, home prices in Santa Cruz County have jumped 17 percent in the past year as bargain-hunting investors find that rising rents and rock-bottom interest rates are again making it profitable to be a landlord.