We started our day in Ojai, waking up at the Blue Iguana and meeting Sharron (Kim’s sister) & Woo at the Ojai Valley Inn for breakfast. All the times that I’ve been to Ojai, I’ve tried to book a room at the Ojai Valley Inn and never found a vacancy. Today was actually the first time I’ve ever driven up to and been within sight of the place and I must say that I understand…
We are on the first of two of this year’s midsummer roadtrips, the great American tradition. There are six of us (Kim and me, daughter Carolyn and John, and Charlotte & Evelyn) from three generations driving around California in an SUV designed to hold six people and just barely enough luggage for five days and four nights. I am no Chevy Chase, but there are moments when this all feels like a scene from National…
I’m sure you remember when you were a kid that someone in your family would make a comment about eating your dinner as served to you on your dinner plate. There were the usual, “What about the starving kids in Europe?” comments that were popular after WWII for a few years. That would get complemented in the sixties by the wise-ass kids at the table asking with tongue-in-cheek, “Yeah, but what’s about the youth-in-Asia (euthanasia)?”…
As I drive around San Diego County and prepare to head north today with the entire family (Kim, Carolyn, John, Charlotte and Evelyn), I have noted that the car culture of Southern California makes me ponder many things. As examples, I am impressed by how much the quality and appearance of cars has improved over my adult life. I feel like fifty years ago you would drive around and the cars on the road were…
Yesterday I had the most unusual experience. I went for my follow up visit at the Palomar wound clinic. originally went there about three weeks ago when I returned from our European trip in June. It was all about a nasty sore. I have been nursing for over a month on my lower right leg. I have mentioned that the CARE and medical advice I received at the wound clinic was perhaps the best medical…
When I was a kid, a fixture on Saturday afternoon television was ABC’s Wide World of Sports, which dominated the sports anthology broadcasting market from 1961 to 1997. Few TV programs have run longer (Meet the Press, The Tonight Show, Sesame Street, and The Price is Right are among those few). Who can forget “The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat!” Back in 1986, I was watching Wide World of Sports one day…
The pharmaceutical industry is enormous, representing one of the world’s largest and most valuable sectors. The global pharmaceutical market is valued at approximately $1.5-1.6 trillion annually as of recent years, with consistent growth of 4-6% per year. This includes both prescription and over-the-counter medications. The industry is dominated by large multinational corporations like Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Roche, Novartis, and Merck, with individual companies often generating $40-80 billion in annual revenue. The industry employs millions…
I’m in New York City this morning having arrived here at the Cornell Club about 12 hours ago. I was out of the air condition cab and had to walk about 10 feet to the air-conditioned lobby of the club and I must say I was surprised at how how hot and humid it was for that few seconds that I was outside. It was a good reminder of just how muggy it can get…
Flotsam and jetsam are maritime terms that refer to different types of debris found floating in the ocean or washed up on shores, though they’re often used together colloquially to mean “odds and ends” or “miscellaneous items,” and especially things that have no control over their provenance and at at the mercy of fate. Flotsam refers to wreckage or cargo that floats on the water after a ship has sunk or been wrecked. It comes…
About a year ago, our friend Melisa decided that she wanted to put in a zen garden in the front of her house in a spot defined by the alcove created by her home’s architectural design as determined by a large boulder that sits imbedded in the earth in that alcove. These giant granite boulders that are strewn all over these hillsides in this part of the state are sometimes of defined size and shape…