When we are kids, we revel in having fun. The world revolves around having fun at the early stages of life. You can see the instinct clearly in Buddy, who is still a young dog at three. When he wakes up in the morning, all he wants to do is play. He will come up to our faces in bed and try to convince us that its time to get up to play. He is…
In a few weeks Kim is heading off for her 50th high school reunion in Wabash, Indiana, her home town and where she spent the first 20 years of her life. Kim is not only connected to Wabash for family reasons…though she has very little family left there now, but also because it’s where her musical roots began. Over the years that Kim and I have been together, she went back to Wabash twice to…
Do you know the Saturday Night Live (SNL) skits with Kristen Wiig as a part of the “Lawrence Welk Show” sketch series? However connected I might have been to the “Lawrence Welk Show” in my grade school days in Wisconsin, I feel more connected to Lawrence now since our hilltop is directly above the Lawrence Welk Resort (now owned by Marriott as a timeshare) that sits adjacent to Rt. 15 between Temecula and Escondido on…
On this past Sunday night, the night of Father’s Day, we had tickets to see the next LaJolla Playhouse play in the season’s rotation. As season ticket-holders, we see them all, and quite frankly, they do a good job of attracting good new productions that almost all feel like they have a shot of getting to the big time, even though few probably do. Our friends Dulcinea and Bill, who live in LaJolla, are also…
About 30 years ago, I was at a Cornell recognition function (I believe it was a Presidents Club gathering) in New York City, and a pleasant young woman came up to me wearing a badge that identified her as part of the development office at the University. Nothing about that was unusual because this sort of function always had lots of development officers schmoozing alumni like me. What was different was that she told me…
My oldest son Roger shares my initials. I am Richard Albert and he is Roger Andrew. We have always figured that there was some benefit in sharing the same initials since monogrammed things like satchels and miscellaneous leather goods always look good wearing some intergenerational aging. We also both like the toughness and rugged image of the curled horned beast that protects the heard and roams the mountainside. I have to take responsibility for carrying…
The combination of our first-half 2026 travel break and my rebuilding closet has caused me to rethink and reprovision my travel gear. Kim replaced her old suitcase set with Away luggage (our go-to brand these days), and while I had replace my carry-on, it was time after fifteen years to replace my larger checked bag before our Rhine cruise departure in late August. While doing that, I decided that I needed a different knapsack. To…
There are two types of scaling that are on my mind this morning. The first is the kind that comes from hard water. Hard water is simply water that contains elevated levels of dissolved minerals, primarily calcium and magnesium, picked up as water moves through rock and soil before reaching your tap. It’s measured in grains per gallon (GPG) or parts per million (PPM) with the gradation definitions being Soft: 0–3 GPG, Moderate: 3–7 GPG,…
This morning it is 52 degrees and moist on the hilltop. I’m preparing for my trip back east on Monday and being sure to pack some beachwear for my sailboat ride on the Chesapeake and Rehoboth Beach combing when I visit my son, Roger. Something seems off with this picture. This May Gray day is not so atypical for this time of year in San Diego, but it never feels entirely right either. As part…
Have you heard about the agnostic, dyslexic insomniac? He stays up all night wondering if there’s a Claude. Oh my Claude! I cannot believe all that I am reading and hearing this morning and it is blowing my mind (which the AI world now calls a “meat computer”). How do I unpack this best? I must start with Pope Leo XIV…I absolutely LOVE the guy. I didn’t think I could love a Pope more than…