Long Live COVID I read the Financial Times article summary every day and most often chase down several articles. I do the same for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, but no publication covers the world like the FT. That is particularly so in one of the areas of my greatest interest, the pension and retirement area. I suspect the reason for this is that while pensions matter to the other…
Beyond the Garbage Bins It’s Wednesday morning at 6am and I’m sitting barefoot in the jump seat of the Sprinter Van we have rented for a trial run. I have put the blinds next to me up because, while Kim has fallen back to sleep, I know she wears both an eye mask and ear plugs and will not be bothered by my rousing. I am feeling very alive this morning, but can’t claim that…
Project Sailshade “Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun” according to the 1931 Noel Coward song and reinforced in the titling of Joe Cocker’s 1970 album of similar name. Noel Coward wrote the song while traveling from Hanoi to Saigon, so he had tropical heat on his mind. One of the great lines in the song refers to the “Noonday gun” in reference to the fact that in Hong Kong the noonday…
Coming Out of Hibernation Over the past few months, Kim and I have gotten into the practice of regularly measuring our temperature, pulse and oxygenation levels in search of any signs of the Coronavirus. This started by watching video clips of Chinese state agents pointing temperature guns at the foreheads of transiting passengers to determine risk of infection. This predated the thought that asymptomatic transmission was a major concern and seemed like a sensible, though…
The End of the World In case you hadn’t noticed, I like bold headlines. All writers become aware that their readers decide in the first paragraph of their stories whether this among many stories available to all readers at all times will interest them and be worth reading in its entirety. Sometimes, when a thought for a story strikes me, I sit and ponder a title or headline before I organize and commit to writing…
What About Bob? I have now met Bob three times. He is a local electrician who is 62-years old and he has come to the house once to install an outlet in the Master Bath to accommodate a new bidet we wanted to install, once to install nine LED outdoor security lights and today to install a ceiling outlet box for a Big Ass Fan I have bought to put in the study. Bob would…
My Garage Seat I am becoming a man of new interests. When I started working in late June, 1976 it was a mere two months before I got engaged to be married. Our wedding was just after Thanksgiving. By February we had bought a house. It was a nice little starter house with three bedrooms and a bath upstairs and a kitchen, living room, dining room, den and half bath downstairs. As a starter house,…
Sprinting Forward Every family needs dynamic tension I suppose. I am proud to be a part of a family that likes to speak its own mind and is never short on opinions. And those opinions are not restricted to politics or the goings on around the community and world. They also extend into what we are all doing all on our own. No one is a bigger target than me and here is why I…
Secrets of the Digital Universe I feel I owe you all some resolution on several unanswered mysteries that have been plaguing me for the past few months. I have found over the past fifty years that the old medical school adage to “think horses, not zebras” is more true than not and and serves us well when trying to solve mysteries. The complicated conspiracy theory of the dead neighbor having set up a ruse to…
Escape From New York I have always loved the 1981 John Carpenter film (he wrote it and directed it) starring Kurt Russell and portraying the dystopic city which has become a Federal maximum-security prison (the only one in the country) allowed to self-govern and headed by Isaac Hayes with Ernest Borgnine running around giving people cab rides in his old Checker. Russell plays one of the great movie characters of all time, Snake Plissken with…