Z/Web

Author: Stephen Frey

Tame but easy to read story about a wealthy chairman of a private equity firm who’s in charge of billions of dollars as he tries to manage his personal life, threats against himself and his company, and deal with some sort of weird spy-novel plot that ultimately didn’t have much to do with anything. Entertaining, despite being over the top in certain plot elements and scenes. At least the financial stuff is interesting.

Another in-flight movie, most likely edited for content, but since it was not a film I was too excited about seeing, that was okay. The trailer had made this seem too predictable, a retread of Stand and Deliver, about a teacher who helps poor and disadvantaged kids succeed. It is predictable (it’s based on a true story), but it’s still pretty decent. I really liked that the thing that helped the teacher connect with the gang kids was the Holocaust, so much that she organized a museum trip for the students and culminating in the kids reading Anne Frank’s diary and raising money to bring Miep Gies, Frank’s house-keeper and protector, to the U.S. to speak at their school. The script tries way too hard to be meaningful and dramatic with obvious setups and “deep” one-liners, but in the end there is some heart and it’s not terrible.

I’m back home! I made it. I had a terrific trip. There were a few glitches — I didn’t have a cell phone (Tracfone deactivated my old one and couldn’t activate the new one in time), which made things more complicated than necessary, and my checked luggage missed the flight home (the airline will deliver it later) — but it was mostly uneventful, which is good. My eating went well. My blood sugars were a little higher than normal but not bad, and I think I only gained a pound or two. I mostly made smart choices whenever I could, and I had some granola bars with me which I ate at times to keep my carbs up. So overall, a fine trip with no medical issues.