Friday, November 22, 1996
The Winds of Change
by GrapeWiz

Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis
(All things change, and we change with them.) -- Alexander Pope

We all know people who get stymied when things don't go according to plan. To them, the smallest hurdle can become a mountain. Life doesn't always go the way we expect it to. My parents, who, oddly, have become much wiser as I get older, always counseled the need for flexibility. Sometimes, you just have to go with the flow.

Why am I home on Saturday night composing a Fribble? If you had told me a mere hour ago that I would be spending my evening this way, I'd have said "No way. I have plans." Well, plans change. Often.

Tonight's plans involved meeting a woman for dinner -- a blind date, if you must know. The arrangements were made a week in advance. An epileptic dog got in the way. You see, some blustery fall weather blew down power lines in the woman's neighborhood, causing an outage, and blanketing her home in darkness. She didn't want to leave her epileptic dog home alone because it might get upset, thereby triggering a seizure. At least she didn't say she had to stay home and clean her closet. In any case, I was sufficiently amused by the novel excuse not to take it too personally.

It was 9:30pm. No problem. The night was still young. I called my buddy who I knew had just gotten home from work. "How about some dinner and a few drinks?" I asked. "Sure, I'll be over in half an hour." Great. Problem resolved. I'd quickly adapted to the situation and laid in a contingency plan. Two minutes later the phone rings. It's my friend calling back. "Listen," he said. "I'm still recovering from our binge last weekend, and I'm not quite ready to do it again yet.'' Okay, be that way.

So, at 10:00 on Saturday night, I find myself sitting home with some unanticipated time on my hands. What to do? Why, write a Fribble, of course!

This is not my first Fribble. The last one I wrote earned me an hour on AOL, compliments of the Fool. Not exactly lucrative, but satisfying nonetheless. Come December 1, AOL goes unlimited, and even that token payment becomes obsolete. (Who will be left to write the Fribbles then???) That's why I figure I need to submit this Fribble now, while I can still make use of my free hour. More change, more adaptation.

Which brings me to my next point. AOL itself has been forced to adapt, chameleon-like, to the constantly mutating on-line environment. Pricing plans, software, network expansion, features and content, are all changing at breakneck speed. Evolve or perish. Future Shock is here. Surely Mr. Case and Co. would have preferred to make some of these changes at a more leisurely pace, but the market necessitated that AOL move rapidly and it will need to continue to do so in order to maintain its position of market leadership.

And what of our investments in the stock market? Sure, we start out with a plan. But do our stocks always behave the way that we expect them to? Certainly some of mine don't. So what to do? Hold steadfastly to our original plan? Do we "fall in love with a stock" and hang onto it no matter what? Of course not. We keep our eyes open, our ears to the ground and pay attention to what is going on with the companies we invest in. And if a company's story changes, then sometimes our plan to hold that company's stock goes right out the door.

Just a minute, the phone's ringing ... Sorry for the interruption. I've really enjoyed sharing tonight with you, but my plans have changed yet again. Some friends are stopping by with a bottle of wine. It looks like tonight may turn out all right after all. I never liked blind dates anyway.

Transmitted: 11/22/96