smorg

Sorry family. The dog gets what’s left.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/29/helmsley.dog.ap/index.html

Leona Helmsley’s dog will continue to live an opulent life, and then be buried alongside her in a mausoleum. But two of Helmsley’s grandchildren got nothing from the late luxury hotelier and real estate billionaire’s estate.
art.helmsley.dog.ap.jpg

Leona Helmsley holds her dog, Trouble, in a 2003 photo.

Helmsley left her beloved white Maltese, named Trouble, a $12 million trust fund, according to her will, which was made public Tuesday in surrogate court.

She also left millions for her brother, Alvin Rosenthal, who was named to care for Trouble in her absence, as well as two of four grandchildren from her late son Jay Panzirer — so long as they visit their father’s grave site once each calendar year.

Otherwise, she wrote, neither will get a penny of the $5 million she left for each of them.

Helmsley left nothing to two of Jay Panzirer’s other children — Craig and Meegan Panzirer — for “reasons that are known to them,” she wrote.

But no one made out better than Trouble, who once appeared in ads for the Helmsley Hotels, and lived up to her name by biting a housekeeper.

“I direct that when my dog, Trouble, dies, her remains shall be buried next to my remains in the Helmsley mausoleum,” Helmsley wrote in her will.

The mausoleum, she ordered, must be “washed or steam-cleaned at least once a year.” She left behind $3 million for the upkeep of her final resting place in Westchester County, where she is buried with her husband, Harry Helmsley.

She also left her chauffeur, Nicholas Celea, $100,000.

She ordered that cash from sales of the Helmsley’s residences and belongings, reported to be worth billions, be sold and that the money be given to the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust.

Her longtime spokesman, Howard Rubenstein, had no comment.

Helmsley died earlier this month at her Connecticut home. She became known as a symbol of 1980s greed and earned the nickname “the Queen of Mean” after her 1988 indictment and subsequent conviction for tax evasion. One employee had quoted her as snarling, “Only the little people pay taxes.”

7ft tall, 4ft wide, 2ft deep. No it’s not my ego, it’s my new humidor.

Ok, not exactly new, but new to me. It’s a pull from a liquor store that evidently went out of business.

It’s got magnetic seals, adjustable cedar shelving, two humidifiers and adjustable temp/RH controls.

I have enough cigars to fill about 1% of the available space.
:)

Click the picture to see more…

After seasoning, cleaning and letting it set, I’ll post some pictures of it ‘filled up’ with my small collection and my larger collection of boxes.

The .mac thing didn’t really work for me. Too much of a change just to make a simple post…not to mention i lost all my archived posts, etc.

But I’ll probably change this site to kind of look like the other one…

So last Monday I was getting in the shower and decided to weigh myself, just to go ahead and get the day started with a bang. I was at a career high 220.5 pounds. Wowsa.

So i decided to take the road less traveled and try to lose the equivalent of a small child. My goal: 180 by September 15th. (Why then? Because Holly and I are going to San Fransisco and I’ll be damned if she’s going to be the only one looking heroin chic in the inevitable pictures.)

That’s 40 pounds in 40 days. Crazy? Perhaps. Stupid? Probably. Possible? Oh yeah.

I’ll be posting my updates here every Monday in the hopes that my public humiliation will be inspiring enough to keep me going.

Here’s the game plan: diet, exercise, willpower. Easy, right?
:)

If I can stay around 1000 calories per day, and do at least a couple of miles on the treadmill or play some tennis every day, I should be pretty close, if not able to reach the goal.

So let’s see. The first weeks weigh in stats:

Monday September 30th - 220.5 lbs
Monday August 6th - 213.5 lbs
Monday August 27th - 209lbs (been busy, that’s my excuse!)

Ok, so far so good. Let’s see if we can keep it up. Any wagers?
:)

Not posted in a while. Been quite busy…
:(

But was doing some maintenance on the humidor today and took a few pics for those of you who share my hobby.