And the Heat Goes On We all know that summer goes as a season until the Autumnal Equinox, one of the two times in the year when the sun’s path crosses directly over the equator and the length of the day is equal to the length of the night (approximately), which this year happens to fall smack dab in between September 22nd and 23rd. And we know from experience here in the Northern Hemisphere that…
The Pacific Has No Memory The Shawshank Redemption has been the top-rated movie on IMDb ever since it went to video almost thirty years ago. Strangely enough, the movie was not a box office success, and while it was nominated for seven Academy Awards, it won not a one. It’s heritage was solid, having been based on a story written by Stephen King and adapted by director Frank Darabont, who never again did anything as…
A Blue Super-Moon As a nod to the uniqueness of the moment and as a bonus for my readers (at least those who like my stories), I am sending out a second story today, just like August is sending us a second full moon tonight at 9:30pm. A Blue Moon, as most of you know is when there is a second full moon in a month (a month being, by definition, a lunar cycle). That…
The Big Disconnect The world is spinning off in two different directions at the same time. What I can’t really figure out is whether or not this is what always happens, if it is a short-lived quirk, or if this is a new phenomenon that sets the tone for what we have to live with going forward. We have all heard about and experienced the divisiveness in our society these days. In the extreme, the…
The Dance Card Gets Filled The notion of a dance card started in the Eighteenth Century, but it really came into vogue in Nineteenth Century Vienna. I always thought of it in regard to Gone With The Wind with the young Scarlett O’Hara with a small booklet looped to her wrist where the evening ballroom dances were listed and next to which she could write the names of the many beaus and potential suitors that…
The Cold Cut of Life I know before I write this that I will receive any number of comments and criticism for what I am about to write. This is less because I plan to write something controversial or fundamentally bad, but more because I am playing into both a gender stereotype, and what many of you have always suspected is a personal flaw of mine. I mentioned in passing that the other day I…
The Dark Triad The psychology of leadership is an important issue generally, but it seems especially so today. Leadership in good times is challenging, but leadership in difficult times is imperative. We are in some of the most difficult times the world may ever have seen. I know we are all prone to a degree of hyperbole in thinking that our problems are greater than all others, but the truth is that as cyclical as…
Stack & Roll When I was twelve years old we moved from Wisconsin to Maine. There were many things about that move that were milestones. My mother was going from being a graduate and post-graduate student to again being a gainfully employed professional, earning 7X the income that we had lived on for the past four years. We were moving from an enlightened urban center in the Midwest where we drank “pop” to the deep…
Trimming the Palm Tree The Mexican Fan Palm is a native palm tree that comes from Baja California and the Sonoran Desert. That means it is an indigenous plant more or less and not something that was imported from Madagascar or some such exotic place. Things grow so well in this 9-10-rated climate zone that it is not surprising that the Mexican Fan Palm thrives just a few miles north of its native habitat. It…
Fly Me To the Moon I must admit that I haven’t spent a lot of time focused on the space race since that was the race between Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Richard Branson to be the first billionaire in space. So, I wasn’t so very aware that both Russia and India were rushing to beat one another to land an unmanned ship at the South Pole of the moon. I’m not sure that is…