Independence Day Today was July 4th. My whole life, July 4th has been a very special day for me. It began in my memory when I lived in Costa Rica in 1959 and 1960. As expats in a small far-away land, we were invited to the U.S. Embassy Independence Day barbecue, which was herald each year on the grounds of the Embassy in San Jose. It was a special day and we used to make…
On the Wine Trail The Finger Lakes area was designated in 2018 as the best wine growing area in the U.S. That is probably surprising to those who have only thought about Napa and Sonoma as holding that honor, but there are lots of reasons that the area has become such a winery-rich area. At last count there are over 120 wineries in the finger Lakes, nestled amongst the eleven Finger Lakes (Canadice, Canandaigua, Cayuga,…
Trashing It When I got my first vacation home back in 1987, it was a newly-built cabin on a three-acre wooded hillside in Hillsdale, New York, on the borderline of being in the Berkshires. The Berkshires (Egremont and such) were more toney and more expensive and this was my first vacation home. I paid cash for it and did a lot of the furnishing and fixing up myself. I had three local brothers who should…
The Toothless Lion Over the course of my drive to Ithaca, I listened to an audio book called River of the Gods by Candice Millard. It is the story of the search for the headwaters of the Nile River in the mid-Nineteenth Century. It was a fascinating book that focused on two explorers I had never heard of before. The main protagonist was Captain Richard Burton and his assistant and nemesis was John Speke. We…
Heading Out to the Rogue’s Harbor This has been the first day of of the grandkids here in Ithaca. While I spent my day getting the carriage house finished from my purge of memorabilia and ready for son Thomas’ arrival tomorrow night, Kim did what Kim loves to do, which is go out and shop for miscellaneous things we need for the weekend. We will have sixteen for the bulk of the holiday weekend, so…
Let ‘Em All Go To Hell Except Cave 76 Do you remember comedy albums? I guess they have been replaced by Comedy Podcasts or Sirius Comedy Radio or maybe the regular Comedy Central not-so-special Specials. Like a good cartoon in my youth that got played over and over again to our glee (Beep! Beep!), where the themes were simple and easy to grasp and the key to most of the humor came in the repetition…
Paging Doctor Cohen with an Assist by Cliff Davis We are spending the weekend at Camp Davis on Lake Ariel in the Poconos, the lovely vacation home of our dear friends Cliff and Linda. I met Cliff and Linda fifty-one years ago on the second floor of University Halls Dormitory number Four (called U-Hall 4 by its denizens). The greatest difference between this U-Hall and the other five identical cinderblock post-WWII buildings was that unlike…
Ten-Digit Dialing I got an interesting notice yesterday from my mobile phone service provider, which happens to be Spectrum (since they offer the Verizon system without the added Verizon cost structure and smarmy, cheating ways as documented in previous stories). The notice was intended for their customers to inform them that from now on there is no such thing as “local calling” and that all calls must heretofore be placed with a full ten-digit number…
The Dead Never Call Yesterday, while driving from Kansas City to Kim’s home town of Wabash, Indiana, I got an email from an old business school pal, Bob. To be fair, Bob has actually been more than a B-school pal, but that is where I first encountered him. I went to business school directly from undergraduate. I took several courses in the last semester of my senior year and then managed to get enough courses…
Big Tree I have written many times about my fascination with trees. Last year I read (or more accurately, listened to) several books about trees and their hidden lives through their root systems and through the fungi that help them communicate with one another. I also recently wrote about hiring a local Consulting Arborist to advise me about my various trees on my property and how best to care for them. I only had him…