Today I am wearing a t-shirt given to me by my daughter Carolyn. It is a light blue shirt that simply says, Easy Breezy. I suppose that it might be a statement about the weather here on the hilltop. Today, a day in early February, it’s scheduled to be in the high 70s, which usually means it will end up being in the low 80s. Right now at 8am its sunny and 65. From the…
The Tyrol (or Tirol) is a historic region in the Alps that straddles the Austrian-Italian border. There’s the Austrian Tyrol, which forms the Austrian state of Tyrol (Bundesland Tirol) with its capital of Innsbruck and South Tyrol (Südtirol/Alto Adige), the southern part that became Italian territory after World War I. That is now an autonomous province of Italy with its capital being Bolzano/Bozen (the place of my state’s heritage). There’s area is still largely German-speaking…
Everyone knows that health is wealth, but it is also said that “Health is not valued till sickness comes”. Well, this past Sunday morning, for the first time in a long time, I awoke to the beginning symptoms of a cold. A typical cold follows a fairly predictable pattern over 7-10 days. It starts with scratchy or sore throat, sneezing, and fatigue. Then symptoms intensify – nasal congestion becomes heavy, runny nose with clear or…
It’s been a while since I’ve written about my weight loss program, so I thought an update was in order. I am now about four months into my Zepbound journey and just finish bed my 10mg dose allotment. That means I an two thirds of the way through what they say is a 22% average weight loss program. I am currently 12% down in weight, so a bit further than half way there. While on…
My youngest son Thomas now lives in Denver. There are lots of reasons that he and his wife moved there last year, but one of the big reasons I suspect is ent many young people gravitate to Colorado…for the skiing. All three of my children were raised on spending their winters skiing, mostly in Park City, Utah, where I kept a ski house for fifteen years. In my day, I used to spend 35-45 days…
I have struggled to write about the events that unfolded over the weekend in Minneapolis. The brutal and unwarranted killing of Alex Pretti is all over social media and shows no signs of leaving the news cycle any time soon. In fact, the political fallout from the killing of Pretti has been so severe and bipartisan that it now seems that Trump is finally backing down in a way that he was not prepared to…
At last! Someone has finally said what the whole rational world has been thinking. We finally have a new hero in Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada. At the Davos World Economic Forum, Carney delivered a succinct and inspiring 30 minute speech that brought the collective audience of politicians, national leaders, corporate chieftains, and members of the global power elite to their feet in a standing ovation. These are the moments that define history…
Not long ago, I was reading the Washington Post and an interesting article caught my eye. It was a story about an unknown author who self-published a book only to have it turn into a blockbuster success. I wrote my first book in 2013. My friend David Taggart (rest his soul), acted as my unofficial agent and sent a summary of a project about the pension market to the biggest academic publisher. They came back…
My youngest son Tom is here for a few days by himself. Tom (a.k.a. Thomas) has been a regular and often visitor to Casa Moonstruck over the fourteen years we have owned this place. The hilltop and all its glorious views, weather and landscape seem to appeal to him just like they do to us. Now that Daughter Carolyn and her brood have spent three summers here (they have spent the month of July here…
We recently lost Jeff Grogg to the universe. Jeff was a beloved husband to Lisa, a beloved brother to Kim and Sharon, a beloved uncle to Will, Josh and even a non-Grogg like my son Tom and also a feisty as shit brother-in-law to me. About 30 years ago I stood a few miles from here at Mission San Luis Rey giving my first eulogy. That was for my father and I learned an important…