Anthropocene Independence Day Today is July 4th and we now have 32 people confirmed to attend our little Independence Day Barbecue. I’ve already bought 60 pounds of ice that is sitting in the garage in coolers, trying not to all melt before the festivities begin. I imagine this is a big ice buying day and that the ice merchants will be out of stock in a few hours. Despite refrigeration being around since 1834 and…
When You’re Hot You’re Hot This morning I went out for bagels like I normally do on Sundays. My routine is to get to the bagel deli a little after 7am, when it opens, to insure that I both beat the crowd and make sure that they have not run out of everything bagels, which have become the family go-to selection. I have refined the ordering process and now get toasted everything bagels for me…
What I Stand For Years ago I worked with a guy named Josh, who was my deputy in several roles and at several organizations over some eight years. That is a long time to mentor someone and perhaps an even longer time to be mentored. While he was, technically, a subordinate and was younger than me by a dozen years, I came to think of him more as a peer than a subordinate. Such was…
Being Kind is Cool My granddaughter Evelyn arrived with her family yesterday and after the hugs and car loading we headed off from the airport to go to a lunch spot we like on San Diego Bay. We use to like our visits to San Diego to start that way and like to show our guests the same pleasurable entry point. Once we had sat down I could finally look at my granddaughters and chat…
Having a Catch When you were a kid, did your Dad take you out in the backyard with your baseball glove to play catch or to have a catch? Here’s the thing, I didn’t have either because my father was busy living his best life without us. He and my mother met in Venezuela when she was a well-paid big shot with the Rockefeller Foundation, doing development work in the backwater parts of Venezuela while…
The Kids are All Right In 2010 there was a movie that may have missed your screen. It was with Annette Bening, Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo and it was called The Kids are All Right. It is a story about three adults in a love triangle specifically because of two of them having parented a few kids who were coming of age. As America and the world ages day-by-day, I suspect we will get…
Weaponizing America It is a well knows phenomenon in modern psychology that people project their own issues onto others. The people who are most likely to steal are often the ones you have to watch like a hawk because they are inclined to larceny. There is little doubt in America who in the political spectrum is pro-gun. Republicans have set the Second Amendment ahead of all others. Their less than strict and very self-serving interpretation…
Relitigating the Wheel The moment I knew I would have to encounter is coming tomorrow. The litigation between the The New York Wheel and its primary contractor, called the Design/Build Team (DBT) has gotten to the point where I am being deposed tomorrow. Due to some quirk, the deposition will be held here in San Diego, so it will be relatively easy to get to, but it will be the standard “up to 7 hours”…
At Times Like This Seven years ago, in the midst of the 2016 presidential election, one of the comments about Donald Trump that got lost in the shuffle was that he would likely not be a steady and reliable leader in a crisis, especially a serious crisis that might involve nuclear weapons. The issue came up several times during his presidency like when he abruptly cancelled the Iran nuclear ban deal, started playing footsie with…
Kick It or Lick It Revolutions eat their own children. That’s the way the ex-ambassador to NATO from the U.S. put it on this Sunday morning after the world was hanging on the edge of their seats during the start of the coup d’etat in Russia yesterday at this time. Kim and I were driving back from Phoenix dragging my motorcycle on a U-Haul trailer. We listened to the Breaking News all the way and…