Some of my friends speak highly of Venezuela’s strong man Hugo Chavez. This pisses me off, because I detest what he’s doing to his country and his dangerous braggadocio all over the world stage. I have read travelers’ accounts of how pathetic it is there compared with neighboring countries like […]
This is a plan I think we should push our leaders to adopt. Visit PickensPlan
Mad Men is a television show that’s been lauded and praised by many. I caught the past two shows and think the buzz is deserved. The opening credits give you a hint that it’s a little different from most 2008 scripted TV fare. In an animated sequence, a man wearing […]
As an American traveler, one topic that I care deeply about is the value of the dollar. Over the past year, changing my crisp 100 dollar bills into euros or kronors or pesos has been a bummer of an experience. And it’s rare to speak with a traveler returning from […]
I got a solicitation from Time magazine in the mail at the cafe this morning. The regular newsstand price, it trumpeted, was $252 per year for 56 issues. The offer was a year of Time for twenty bucks. Oh, and if I sent back the card with payment, they’d send […]
Last night after a long time closing up the cafe I relaxed on the couch and turned on the TV at 8:08 pm. It was time for that gathering that does indeed bring the world together–or at least to the same channel–for sixteen days: The Olympics. I knew I could […]
“There are two railroads out there,” said Amtrak President Alex Kummant in a Wall St. Journal article today. “There’s the one we run every day, and there’s the one everybody imagines is out there.” Kummant was asked about a topic that I wrote about in the Valley Advocate: really fast […]
I’ve been thinking about this date for a long time. Today is eight, eight, oh eight. WOW. It’s the opening night of the Olympics and at 8:08pm tonight, we’ll be watching. It might be a little more difficult because last night while Cindy was on the phone with me, we […]
We walked for a while a month ago when we visited Cape Cod for a leisurely weekend. I love those long weekends with little to do.
I had a commentary published in this week’s Valley Advocate. Last night as I read various news sites, I thought about how the Rush Limbaugh crowd and others would label me a liberal, cheese-eating surrender monkey for my thoughts about why I think Europe has its priorities better in line […]
Dog sharing was a topic on the front page of yesterday’s WSJ. This topic hit me because my mother and my neice have been sharing a dachshund named Pablo for several months now. Val said it works out very well. They split time in the week about half and half, […]
We watched a film with a few surprises in it tonight. Again, I get the ‘oh Max’ groan, after choosing an unknown Netflix film that just happened to contain homosexual sex. Well, I do admit I wanted one scene with these two men in bed to end faster than it […]