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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Without a Clue This process of exiting Ithaca is proving to be even more drawn out than I had previously imagined. I keep saying to myself that I have written my last story about closing down my 26-year home here and moving on, but something always seems to draw me back in. I sincerely hope this is the last of these stories, but I cannot promise that for certain. I have shipped seventeen boxes of…
Back at the Slopes Today was a relatively short driving day from Jackson to Park City. Kim and I got up at our normal roadtrip time of O’Dark Thirty. I did what I always do, which is write a story while staring up at the Grand Tetons. I had been instructed about how to get my own cereal, which I did, and once 8am rolled around, Kim and I decided that it might be best…
Being at Altitude Having owned a home in Park City, Utah for over fifteen years, I made it a point to get a familiar with the impact of altitude on the human body. I actually owned five different homes in Park CIty over those years for various and sundry reasons and they all ranged from being from 6,500 to 8,500 feet in altitude. That is the price of having a western ski house on the…
Crazy Is As Crazy Does Today was spent driving from the middle of Minnesota, from the little town of Austin, which I picked randomly when planning this trip. As I was checking out of the Holiday Inn I noticed a display case in the lobby. It was filled with every manner of promotional item for Spam one could think of. It seems that Austin is the home of that favorite pink canned meat we all…