Danger, Will Robinson In 1965, the Robinson family blasted off into space and into the American psyche. The choice of name Robinson was not random or accidental. The name comes from an 1812 novel by Johann David Wyss, a Swiss novelist who wrote The Swiss Family Robinson, about a family emigrating to Australia that gets lost somewhere on a desert island in the South Pacific. In 1960, the story was adapted into a movie staring…
The Art of Juggling We all have to juggle at one time or another, but I think it is safe to say that the fine art of juggling is usually honed in the service of business. Sometimes we are forced to juggle work and home life and God knows I’ve had my share of that, with work winning more times than I care to admit. These days, that particular juggling act is much easier since…
Mountain Time Yesterday we crossed out of Utah and after a quick stop at Four Corners, adding New Mexico to the trip’s list of states covered (bringing it now to six states), we passed into the Rocky Mountain State of Colorado. I’ve just spent my second night at altitude (6,600 feet here in Durango) and while I got a slightly better night’s sleep, I can still feel the affects of the lower oxygen levels just…
The Holding Pen of Life In a recent British movie I watched, the narrator sets up the plot about a man in later life (Jim Broadbent…Bridget Jone’s dear old dad) who will be facing a crisis of his legacy. The comment is a made about the man when he was young and in school that he and his fellows felt as though they were in a holding pen. He goes on by saying that he…
The Dawn’s Early Light I am sitting in the Great Room at The Lodge at Red River Ranch in the middle of Southern Utah’s amazing Canyonlands. There is red rock in every direction I can look. It’s a cool 60 degrees after a typically high desert night and there is not a cloud in the sky. A light breeze sways the cottonwoods and the bison herd in the front yard as grazing contentedly. It is…
Know When to Walk Away I’ve been coming to and through Las Vegas for many years. My sister Barbara and her family moved here in 1978 and have never looked back. My mother moved there to support my sister in 1980 and spent the rest of her life there. That meant that I had lots of reasons since those days to pass through Las Vegas. For almost 30 years, Las Vegas was a logical jumping…
The Great Divide I have been fascinated by the idea that there is a line one can draw down the continent that demarcates what is known as the hydrological divide of the Americas. That means simply that to the east of that line all the water flows east and to the west of it, all the water flows west. This line extends all the way from the Bering Strait down to the Straits of Magellan.…
Open Water A few years ago there was a movie called Open Water that was about two scuba divers who got left behind on a drift dive in the Caribbean. I once did a drift dive off of Cozumel back in the years when I was actively scuba diving and I can tell you that the idea of being accidentally left behind in the open ocean is a scary thought that probably occurs to most…
The Mystery of Well-Being In November of 2020, as we were all hunkered down with our first winter of COVID and we were glad to be out of NYC and on our hilltop, I walked outside onto our deck after a particularly hard rain the day before and I suddenly found myself hip deep in my deck. I had most suddenly fallen through my deck just steps outside my Kitchen door. It was amazing that…
Zoo To You Too San Diego is nothing if not a Zoo town. We actually have what I would call two zoos here. They are both part of the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance and the one is the world famous Zoo near Balboa Park in the middle of the city. The other is the San Diego Zoo Safari Park and it is very near where we live in Escondido. The main Zoo is 100…