GPSing In 1996 I was on one of the first motorcycle rides of what became my motorcycle group called AFMC (American Flyers Motorcycle Club). We were in northern Vermont at Shelburne Farms on Lake Champlain. We had had a very cold October ride through Vermont, warming our hands at every stop, like the Warren Country Store. In fact, it was that ride that convinced me to upgrade to a BMW R1100RT, which has guided my…
A Really Good Week I have always considered myself an extreme optimist. I feel that while the direct connections between thinking positively and actually accomplishing things is hard to draw, I do stand by the power of positive thinking as a force magnifier. There is little doubt in my mind that people prefer to be around positive attitudes than naysayers and that having other people on your side always helps get things done. That said,…
Breakfast of Champions While I was in college, Kurt Vonnegut, a notable fellow alumnus of Cornell University, wrote a book called Breakfast of Champions. The title is an obvious take-off from the General Mills breakfast cereal called Wheaties, which specializes in putting the pictures of famous athletes on the box to encourage young Americans to eat their breakfast cereal, which is basically a corn flake with bran added to keep the youngsters more or less…
Joventino Today is Wednesday and it’s the week that Joventino has come to work in my garden. Joventino arrives at 7am like clockwork and never leaves before 5pm. He puts in a very full day and is constantly moving, working for what amounts to about 9+ hours. I know for a fact that he does this six days a week. His going rate is $180 in cash per day, which is crazy. He comes in…
Summertime Today is the last day of May and even though the summer season doesn’t officially start for another 21 days until the summer solstice, June is a summer month and warm sunny weather is what we are all accustomed to finding in the lazy days of summer. As you know by now, this has been an unusual year here on the hilltop. Between atmospheric rivers and extended cooler weather, we feel as though we…
Recall? Recall?! I’m sure you remember that scene from the 1979 coming-of-age classic Breaking Away, which was set in Bloomington, Indiana. In it, a graduating local high school student, who loves bicycle racing forms a local “Cutters” team to compete against the Indiana University frat boys. His father is a local used car dealer and ex-cutter himself, who sells junkers to the naive local student body. The scene that I always remember as so memorable…
An Expert’s Expert Business is booming. Did I mention that I’m retired? Have I explained about how after 45 years of being in harness, I’m working hard at trying to relax more and be less focused on achievement orientation? Well, I seem to be doing something wrong here because the work just seems to be coming at me more and more rather than less and less. And here’s the thing that I have to admit,…
Holiday Road Some of the great modern day stories come from people trying to get home for the holidays. Here in the U.S. there are really five holiday seasons that really matter. The first is the Christmas/Hanukkah break that is usually considered to include the New Years holiday. The second and most uniquely American holiday in the Thanksgiving holiday. Canadians also have a Thanksgiving holiday, but it occurs about almost two months before its American…
The Tender and the Tough Why do some people get hardened by life while others get bruised and more bruised as life goes on? Is this a function of the thickness of our skin or is it more of a nurture rather than nature issue that reflects the environment and societal forces that have weighed upon us? When you look at certain people, like an obvious candidate for such consideration, Donald Trump, you can actually…
In Defense of Myself As it turns out, I am still in the heart of Des Moines, biding my time thanks to the opposition in this case deciding that they wanted to spend extra time taking me apart piece by piece. I arrived here on Sunday with the initial expectation that I would give my testimony on Monday or Tuesday. As we began on Monday, it became clear that I was more likely to go…