Rejection and Regret You know I am an eternal optimist and while some might think that is either naive or tactically artificial (like Donald Trump claiming to always be a winner and never a loser), I actually believe that my system creates excess serotonin and that seems to be something that happens overnight. I am serious about that, why else would I be such a difficult and cranky person at night (never engage me in…
The Distant Ocean When service people come to this house of ours on the hilltop, as one HVAC specialist did just yesterday, they invariably stand and look out at our views, especially towards the ocean, and comment on what a great view we have. We do have a great view and both Kim and I do not take it for granted. On almost every day, one of us will comment to the other about the…
Crystal Clarity I want some new laws of thermodynamics. Thermo means relating to heat and dynamics relating to the forces of change within a system or process. If we don’t break down that term like that, we get mired in the world of arcane physics and get dragged into the realm of energy conservation and things like entropy, which are all about randomness and uncertainty. The first two laws of thermodynamics were promulgated in the…
Mission Creep Ever since human beings have gathered together with enough organization to marshal an army, they have succumbed to the temptation of allowing their military objectives to gradually shift and circumstantially over-commit to any manner of unanticipated objectives. But it wasn’t until the 1990’s in Somalia and the Blackhawk Down problems in Mogadishu that some NYT or WAPO journalist came up with a catchy term to explain what was turning into U.S. State Department…
Home Alone Who doesn’t love the original 1990 Macaulay Culkin movie with such greats as Joe Pesci, John Candy and Catherine O’Hara? The idea of a kid left alone and on his own devices over the holidays is a hilarious premise, made all the funnier by the ne’er-do-well assailants slipping, falling and setting themselves on fire as they try to best the kid left Home Alone. Well, I have been left home alone for the…
Dizzy Disney Today Kim takes daughter Carolyn, her husband John, granddaughters Charlotte and Evelyn, as well as sister-in-law Lisa to Disneyland. Carolyn and her family will stay for three days while Kim and Lisa return after one day of Disney overdose. Carolyn and her family are addicted to Disney as much as anyone can be. She and John got engaged at Disney World and they have each spent milestone birthdays there (she at 30 and…
Learning How to Sweat Again Before you get too excited, let me start by saying that I have not reformed and started going to the gym or anything radical like that. What has happened is that the heat dome that has been hanging over the Southwestern states for over a week has extended its fringe over the mountains to our east and crept up our hillside ever so slightly. Let’s be clear, when you look…
RichFlix My son Thomas is a top notch video producer. It is what he does for a living, now on a freelance basis, but previously for Shake Shack and then for an advertising agency. Besides commercial work and promotional videos, he has also been hired to record and storytell for gatherings. He recently spent a week in Cabo San Lucas on the Mexican Baja at a corporate incentive meeting and filmed it with every piece…
Masculinity is a Prison That title was the t-shirt worn at the family gathering in Utah last week by Kim’s 6’6”, 300-pound rugby-playing nephew who literally wears size 16 shoes. His name is Josh and he and his 6’4”, 340-pound, also rugby-playing, brother, Will are either the last gasp of the Gen X crowd or the first entrants into the Millennial cohort, depending on how you slice the generational cake. Both of these guys are…
A Not-So-Happy Meal During our go-home day after a long 2,200-mile roadtrip with my daughter and her family and two granddaughters, all sitting amongst piled-up luggage and miscellaneous souvenirs (including one particularly sweet rusted metal armadillo with a bobble-head that was purchased in an old Route 66 way-station) in a rented dirty white church van that had served us well, Kim started out with a desperate cry for a stop at Starbucks. I had a…