We drove four hours south from San Mateo yesterday through the agricultural heart of America, Salinas Valley, through towns like Soledad and and Atascatero, where few of the signs were in English. It was Mexican farm laborer country, and all around us were the vast fields where our nation’s vegetables […]
Gazing out at the crisp white snow and the icicles that hang from all the roofs, boy it’s sure time to get out of here. After speaking with my daughter and grandchildren from their 80 degree vacation spot in the Dominican Republic on Facetime, seeing the sun hitting her face […]
Last week’s snowstorms brought out a host of questions, such as, what do airlines do to get staff to the airports and keep their planes safe during storms. In the WSJ, I read a story about how Delta Air Lines set up a ‘war room’ and used their own planes […]
I have begun to truly appreciate the creature comforts, enjoying the spaciousness of my bathroom, and the thick comfortable piles of my hotel style bath towels. I like that things are sturdy and well made, I am in my house so much because of work here, that I’ve come to […]
Learned a little lesson today, one in which it’s up to me to rid myself of anxiety and bear better witness to where it comes from. As I was leaving the house today to do an errand in the car, I look a quick glance into my mailbox, to […]
I’m heading to the family homestead today–a journey I’ve made so many times I think I could drive the four hours in my sleep. Yet even now, after so many decades of doing this very same drive, there are always questions about which route to take? If I Google it, […]
There is nothing that makes you feel more mortal than writing a will. It’s one of those things that you want to get right, and you put off doing. I remember back in 2007 I was going to hold a meeting for people in the cafe who wanted to have […]
I”m sitting in the Cushman Cafe surrounded by young men and women on laptops. I can imagine that the wifi connection is strained with all of the open laptops–practically every table has someone who is connected to the web and they’re all doing this as they drink coffee and take […]
It’s a new year and I’m finally FINALLY getting back to this groove. It’s funny because I’ve approached this screen half a dozen times and yet I haven’t posted. I start thinking about posting and then never do. I understand why so many blogs are abandoned, but fear not, […]
Here are my goals for 2015 Stay alive. With a health scare in October I was and am most concerned about being here. I don’t have a life threatening illness, thank God but as with all of you, I just want to survive here for as long as I […]
What is the future of America’s largest restaurant chain? Times are bleak at McDonald’s, people are confused by the long menus and not inspired by the food. In a story in the WSJ, Julie Jargon interviewed several experts and a millenial about what it would take to get them to […]
We don’t give much thought to the lowly pallet, that piece of southern yellow pine that sits beneath every shipment in every truck and is what everything in every warehouse in the world is sitting on. But today I read a long story about this important part of manufacturing, and […]