Love

Saying Hello

Saying Hello I’ve probably said this in so many ways that I’ve become quite predictable. I have a relatively easy time saying goodbye to places. That comes from my lifetime of moving, first as a trailing child and eventually as an adult with a roving eye and more than a modicum of wanderlust. But saying goodbye to places is always much easier than saying goodbye to people for sure. I’ve been pretty fortunate in my…

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Fiction/Humor Memoir Retirement

Thursdays Suck

Thursdays Suck I suspect that many people, probably the same ones who invented Thank God It’s Friday (TGIF), have felt that Mondays are the day of the week that sucks the most. Needless to say, this likely has mostly to do with the need to go back to work or school come Monday, and the fact that that represents an obligation rather than a desire. There are plenty of songs and accolades to Saturday and…

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Memoir Retirement

Aye, There’s the Rub

Aye, There’s the Rub Shakespeare has Hamlet say, “To sleep, perchance to dream, aye, there’s the rub…”. It is part of the great “to be or not to be” soliloquy and I have a new take on the whole affair. Hamlet was very troubled, to say the least, and was contemplating death by suicide. I love life and am way too much of a chicken to ever come within a mile of that contemplation, but…

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Memoir

In the Den

In the Den I am home after five weeks away. We arrived home yesterday afternoon with enough time to unpack our car and generally shake off the physical issues of our 8,000 mile cross-country extravaganza. I drove every one of those miles and remind Kim of that every time I want her to do something for me. I think after 24 hours, I have run that line of reasoning into the ground and will have…

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Love

Rich in Real Life

Rich in Real Life One of our favorite movies is the 2007 RomCom with Steve Carrel, Juliet Binoche, and Dane Cook called Dan in Real Life. It is directed by Peter Hedges, who is a bit of an obscure director who is perhaps better known as a writer of What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio) and the screenplay for About a Boy, which is another favorite of mine. We are sitting around…

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Memoir

Hearst Castle

Hearst Castle I first saw Hearst Castle in 1981 with my father and my first wife, Mary. We were going from his place in Marina del Rey on the beach up to his country estate in the San Joaquin Valley, specifically Visalia. It wasn’t so very much out of the way and it gave us the chance to taste Anderson’s Pea Soup and stay st the Madonna Inn. But it was San Simeon that really…

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Business Advice Politics

On Capitalism

On Capitalism I am once again finding myself at Capitalism’s front doorstep as it seems to be assaulting my senses as I prepare the next term’s syllabus for my business ethics course. Technically the course is titled Law, Policy and Ethics and I am being sure to add more connective tissue between the three subjects rather than have this be a philosophy course on the etymology of ethics in business. When I launch my thinking…

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Love

Frankly Speaking

Speaking Frankly I have known Frank now for every bit of thirty years. We met by virtue of being next door to each other in condos in a small twelve-unit place called Ontario Lodge on the northern side of the main Deer Valley Mountain, looking down onto Guardsman’s Pass and the old silver mine that was the raison d’et for Park City’s existence. As was emblematic of the two of us, Frank had been there…

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Memoir

In the Half-Light

In the Half-Light There is a favorite line at the end of Norman Maclean’s A River Runs. Through It where Robert Redford as the narrator talks of the aging of the protagonist, Norman. He references him as a fly fisherman who is too old to fish the big waters of the rivers around Missoula. Montana, but does so anyway. He does it in the half-light of the canyon. Half-light is a wondrous term that implies…

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Memoir

West of Winnemucca

West of Winnemucca The ride down Rt. 80 from Snyderville to Salt Lake City is always fun. It’s a regular roller coaster that drops 2,000 vertical feet. During the fifteen years I owned a place in Park City, I’m guessing I made that ride over 500 times. It’s a big wide highway that makes you want to go fast, but if you know the road like I do, you know that some prudence is suggested…

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