I just spent a day doing something I don’t do much with people I haven’t seen often enough, and therefore learning and experiencing a lot of new things. The world is separated into people who love boats and boating and those of us landlubbers who never really caught that bug. In my youth in Wisconsin, the land of 15,000 lakes (even though neighbor Minnesota brags about having 10,000 lakes), I did my share of boating.…
When my mother was 76 (four years older than I am now), she got remarried after a matrimonial hiatus of 35 years. She married Irving Aaron Jenkins, a tall and robust ex-classmate from Cornell’s class of 1937 who was once engaged to her best friend in college and who had been widowed (from a different woman) several years before they reconnected after their 55th reunion. Irving was a few years older than my mother and…
Shoulder season refers to the travel periods between peak and off-peak seasons, typically spring and fall for most destinations. For example, in Europe, peak = summer (June–August) , when there are crowds, high prices, and hot weather (though Europe seems to be experiencing especially hot weather this spring as well). Off-peak = winter (November–February), when fewer tourists, it’s cheaper, and some attractions are closed. So, the “Shoulder Season” = April–May and September–October, or the sweet…
There are two types of scaling that are on my mind this morning. The first is the kind that comes from hard water. Hard water is simply water that contains elevated levels of dissolved minerals, primarily calcium and magnesium, picked up as water moves through rock and soil before reaching your tap. It’s measured in grains per gallon (GPG) or parts per million (PPM) with the gradation definitions being Soft: 0–3 GPG, Moderate: 3–7 GPG,…
We’ve said for several years that we are prepared to travel less. Whether its about the guiltiness of affluence, the burdens of the road, the ache for extended comfort, the throngs at all the favored and best places, the growing realization that the wealth of the world is outpacing my once meaningful edge or just the creeping in of the dreaded “been there, done that” syndrome, doesn’t really matter in this moveable feast of an…
This morning it is 52 degrees and moist on the hilltop. I’m preparing for my trip back east on Monday and being sure to pack some beachwear for my sailboat ride on the Chesapeake and Rehoboth Beach combing when I visit my son, Roger. Something seems off with this picture. This May Gray day is not so atypical for this time of year in San Diego, but it never feels entirely right either. As part…
On the recommendation of my vaunted National Geographic, I am listening to Cave of Bones by Lee Berger, the paleoanthropologist who is arguably the most prolific and controversial fossil hunter of his generation. I love antiquities and spent a fair amount of time in my youth hunting fossils and artifacts from places like burial mounds. I have a meaningful collection of pre-Colombian art that I dug up in Costa Rica when I was living there…
A few years ago, Olivia Newton John regrettably fell prey to her long battle with breast cancer. She was 73, so way too young. She began her career in the late 1960s in Australia and the UK, and made her Billboard Hot 100 debut in 1971. She built a reputation as a soft-spoken country-pop singer, winning the Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal Performance in 1974. Her 1974 hit I Honestly Love You went to…
I wrote last August about a visit I had from my old Roman motorcycling friend, Mike Cobbold, who now lives in Sacramento. I mentioned in my Roman Memories story that Mike has struggled with some physical limitations due to a combination of many years of Type 1 Diabetes, the connected autoimmune condition of Rheumatoid Arthritis, and some strokes… all possibly genetic or perhaps signs of a life lived hard and well in the wilderness. On…
In some ways its a perfectly normal late spring on the hilltop and in other ways its all a little bit different. The normal part is that San Diego weather is just about as nice as one could ask it to be. While we had a little heat wave glory a few months ago, since then I would say it’s been very mild. The rainfall has been a little bit above normal (about 115%) with…