The Makings of a Great Weekend
What makes a great weekend? I often have thought about this and I certainly have blogged about this topic before, here is one from 2012. I am a big post-mortem kind of guy, I like dissecting and analyzing weekends, trips, and visits. I like to go back and talk […]
Friday Wrap up: Interesting Things Are Afoot
Revving up at the end of the week: Sometimes it takes me a whole week to feel in the groove, or that I’m getting much of anything done. I have the same thing happen to me at end of the day. At the close of business, I inevitably get a […]
Saturday Mornings Always Brim with Hope
It’s a Saturday morning at home. I relish these days, when I go back to sleep after waking at my customary hour of 7. Yep, get up, put the cat out and catch another glorious few hours of sleep, with no one needing to wake me. All of my adult […]
Let’s Try Getting the Airline Names Right, eh?
I love words and I love writers who nitpick and analyze our lazy conversational patterns. This blog piece by Patrick Smith, known as the pilot with a blog, captures perfectly the essence of how most people mess up the actual names of airlines. Here he teaches us the real names […]
Golden Steer and the Mob Museum: Two Great Vegas Joints
Yesterday we had a true mob double header here in fabulous Las Vegas. First we spent two hours discovering more than anyone could ever possibly need to know about organized crime, those who did the deeds and those who spent their careers capturing the bad guys. A true smorgasbord of […]
Downtown Las Vegas Loves the Old and is Proud of the New
We’ve been here for enough days to really get a sense of what downtown Las Vegas is like….and we’ve seen a lot of this vibrant city with a downtown that’s dramatically different from the famous Strip at the other end of North Las Vegas Boulevard. The hotel where we’re staying, […]
Downtown Las Vegas Lights It Up!
On my way from the airport to downtown Las Vegas, I asked my driver how hot it can get here. “I went to pick up my wife after work at 1 am, and it was 101 degrees!” he said. We are staying at the Downtown Grand Las Vegas, right near […]
Las Vegas is Next
I’m heading to Las Vegas tomorrow, joining a group of writers and spending all of our time in downtown Las Vegas, not the famous strip. I’ve only been to this glittering city once, and then I spent the whole time on the strip, attending a trade show and not seeing […]
Photos of the Week
Sometimes I just love my job, so much that I want to share some of the wonderful images that I get to work with, plus some that I shoot myself. I”m about to depart on Thursday for Las Vegas, and will have plenty of new photos. But here are a […]
Ice Bugs Could Really Help Around Here
These shoes have come up in several conversations with friends. First, someone told me about how she was becoming almost afraid to go out and walk because there were patches of ice that she might slip on, and did slip some times causing a lot of anxiety and fear. Then […]
The Shea: Friday’s Red Baraat Show Starts an Exciting New Era in Turners Falls
I’m excited about going to the big opening night at the Shea Theater in Turners Falls, which has a new leader and a new and diverse slate of music, drama and spoken word acts coming up for the new year. Friday’s event will feature Red Baraat, who thrilled the crowd […]
Chevrolet’s Malibu a Selfless Player
It’s a leap year day, so we won’t be seeing any posts dated February 29 for another four years. I laughed out loud when I read Dan Neil’s review of the 2016 Chevrolet Malibu, including this brilliant passage…from the WSJ. “Cars like the Malibu are the motor pool’s most selfless […]
Long Beach, Palm Springs and Laguna Beach, Great Spots for a California Getaway!
I’m still thinking about our terrific trip to Southern California last week. What I loved about it was that we choose three distinct cities, all much different, and we got a chance to savor what makes each one so great. I am looking forward to creating some 2-minute videos about […]
Why Do Heroin Dealers Drive Around with Broken Brake Lights?
Some random thoughts on this soggy, chilly sorta-snow day. I read today about another heroin bust in Deerfield on Interstate 91. Every time they nab a dealer, it’s always because they have easy-to-spot problems with their cars. Yesterday’s criminal/junkies had a broken brake light. Others get stopped for speeding, or […]
Laguna Beach From Up Top
We arrived the way most everyone gets to Laguna Beach, on California Rte 133, Canyon Road, the biggest bottleneck here when July and August roll around. I hiked up on top of a mountain next to the ocean here with Doug Oyen, a guide with La Vida Laguna a company that […]
Exploring the Coachella Valley’s Canyons and Oasis by Jeep
What fantastic day we had in the Coachella Valley! We met up with Dick Hoffman, a 17-year veteran guide with Desert Adventures, who piled us into a 1981 Jeep CJ, that holds eight passengers, with three across seating in the back. We set off to explore the oasis that surrounds […]
Palm Springs: A Grand Downtown in the Soft Evening
Palm Springs was a surprise after the drive through the desert. After passing so many chain restaurants and big box stores, it was a treat to arrive downtown to find people walking around the sidewalks, and to duck into local stores and closely spaced businesses. Our first stop was the […]