The Joint is Jumpin’ Last night Kim sang for the first time with a local Jazz combo at a small and unusual gathering spot very close to where we live. Earlier in the week, out of the blue, a woman from her local Women’s Group, who had all come over to our house for a regular dinner gathering, told her she played keyboards with a small jazz band and would Kim be willing to come…
The Irony of Hunter We have all just heard about the conviction of Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. This has been a long saga that really began in the middle of Trump’s presidency. Republicans and Democrats alike were screwing around in Ukraine in between the first assault on that sovereign nation in Crimea by Putin’s Russia in 2014 and their more recent and more widespread incursion into the eastern third of Ukraine in 2022. Yes,…
There But For the Grace I’m at the Syracuse airport waiting for my flight to Atlanta, and after a few hours layover, I’ll board my flight back to San Diego. I remember that when my son Roger complained a little bit about me moving as far away as San Diego, I smartly quipped that the difference between a five hour flight to San Diego and a three hour flight to Florida was not so great…
You Can’t Go Home Again Thomas Wolfe borrowed the phrase “You Can’t Co Home Again” from another author (with permission) so I will do likewise, but with no ability to get permission from the long-since deceased Thomas Wolfe. In fact, his novel with that name was published posthumously in 1940, so there are all sorts of permissioning issues involved right from the get-go. The story is about a writer who has achieved some degree of…
Ithaca Odyssey Nothing is more central to a classic education than the study of the Classics, and, of course at the center of classical literature is Homer and his epic poems of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Both are written in 24 books and done in Dactylic Hexameter, which is rhythmic form of writing with a specific cadence, which the Greeks thought of as heroic in nature. The Iliad is all about the Greek conquest…
The Republic of Humanity When you come into our house, you will see a good deal of interesting art and artifacts from all around the world. I inherited my eclectic taste from my Bohemian mother and every piece has a story attached to it. It is all very bespoke except that you will see a series of mid-sized interesting framed photographs on the walls of our guest suite, kitchen, dining room, living room and elsewhere.…
In Memoriam to Summer We just went through the Memorial Day weekend and that is traditionally the start of the summer in America. We spent the weekend chasing the warmth of the desert on Saturday, did the Barbecue for friends and family out on the patio on Sunday, and did a bunch of gardening and went to our first summer movie (Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, the fifth in the Mad Max series….original, Road Warrior,…
Barking Buddy We’ve had Buddy with us now for about five months. He has settled in nicely and we with him. The one thing that is still going on that we want to correct is that the little guy does like to bark. I sort of understand why a 5.5 pound ball of energy might find the need to make himself known by barking, but it seems to be more than that that’s going on.…
This is a story written for me as a late 70th Birthday gift by my younger son, Thomas. I’m both incredibly impressed and moved by this story and am proud to share it with you (with his blessing). It’s longer than my normal story, but well worth the read in my opinion. Please be sure to click through for the epilogue at the end. Mojo Gubbins My dad doesn’t really do gifts. Let me clarify.…
Work/Life Balance Throughout my working career, the subject of work/life balance was a constant. We all know the story of the workaholic that overworks himself to the point of ignoring his familial obligations. He comes home after the kids are asleep, he cancels vacations at the last minute. He leaves all the child rearing to his wife. And he always misses the baseball game or recital of his children. I occasionally suffered from all of…