Staging Retirement The way I write these blog stories is to think about what’s on my mind, think about what topics might be interesting enough to write about and then asking myself if it fits into the basic categories I have defined for myself and written about for the past five months. Not that complicated, but fortunately, still requiring some chin-rubbing and pondering as I like to be more than just mindless in most…
Lord of the Dance In 48 hours I will be arriving in Shannon, Ireland, gathering up a gaggle of family and friends (19 to be exact) and we will drive in two rented 9-passenger vans and one 4-passenger car the three hours to Westcove, where we have a peaceful and large (operative word is large…as in sleeps 26) manor house and grounds on the Ring of Kerry, right on a lovely cove that looks…
Borderlines This is not the pro-immigration rant you have all come to expect from me in this blog. By the way, I am very pro-immigration and I do seem to be ranting more lately (mostly at work and at the moon over Mr. Trump), but this piece is about different borderlines. I am haunted by great movies and there are very few that are greater than Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun. I think…
Hacking and Wheezing There has been some lousy bug floating around (I’m sure it’s not limited to New York City, but it’s definitely here) that is not the seasonal flu strain (I got that shot), but it has debilitated several people including me. When I say debilitated, I should be careful. I have not lost one day of work (some of my colleagues who have it have lost a few odd days), and I have…
Boyled in Love Kim is a member of SAG/AFTRA through some obscure back-door caused by her long membership in Actor’s Equity. She was in an Italian film starring Daryl Hannah (the movie was called Ole!), but that episode didn’t figure into the equation. What did figure in was paying several thousands of dollars for the back dues for initiation or whatever it was. I remember the discussion about it at the time and we…
System Overload As I was growing up, the ages of 65, 75 and 85 (just to pick three random points) were thought to be oldish, old and very old. We all know about increasing longevity statistics and sixty being the new forty, or whatever. We also all probably know people in their late sixties that are showing signs of age as much as we know people that are vibrant and fresh at the age…
Some Things Never Change Last night Kim and I had dinner with friends Cliff and Linda. Cliff was on my freshman floor at college. We were both engineering students with him thinking he wanted to be pre-med and me thinking I had no idea what I wanted to be. He came to college with a high school girlfriend in tow, who was attending college in nearby Cortland. I came to college with an army…
Too Much, Too Often, Too Funny I have a problem. I over-communicate. I talk too much I’m sure, but what I really do too much is write. It takes form in all aspects of my life, both personal and business. Self awareness is a good thing, but recognition without solution may not be all that valuable. Not that many of the people I run with are in Wikipedia, but I am. It states a number…
The Tea Party When I watch John Meacham on MSNBC at any time of day (he is a popular and regular guest on all their shows ranging from Morning Joe to The 11th Hour), he always strikes me as very calm and poised despite the serious and concerning issues he is addressing about the deficiencies of our current President and the state of political affairs in this country. I just assumed it was because…
Downtown Guy Billy Joel forever owns the term Downtown Guy from his song Uptown Girl, which many Billy Joel aficionados consider one of his less great and more bubble gum songs. I was more of a fan of it than others, but no one has ever accused me of having refined taste in music. At least they haven’t once they find out I’m a big Meatloaf fan. So it is with some apology…