In 1995 I embarked on a journey that has been the most monumental adventure of my life. Sandy and I traveled to Las Vegas to get married. Well, that is not entirely true. Sandy, Carolyn, and I traveled to Las Vegas to become a family. Sandy had been married before, and she and her ex-husband had given...
Well… this blog is being written on Nov 10th… you will most likely be reading it on Nov 16th, or sometime thereafter. As of this writing, the control of the House of Representatives remains in flux, and it appears the Senate won’t be finalized until after the Georgia election in December. (Ah… seems like...
My good friend, Dan Gwaltney, joined me on my last sojourn to West Point. Since he had never been there before, Chaney and I decided to give him the platinum tour, so to speak. It started off at the West Point Visitors’ Center and then we went to the West Point Museum to see...
There seems to be something fitting in the relative importance we give to “firsts” and “lasts”. Though the experiential values in the events between these two standards are uniform, or unique depending on the thing, we do tend to place a special emphasis on the bookends. I suppose that has something to do with our...
I studied the circular ring of water on the bar in front of me. Cocktail coasters littered the bar, but were just slightly out of reach. It was difficult to bother to grab one for my old fashioned so it had rested on the bar, sweating onto the wood as I studied my fellow...
Casablanca (the 1942 movie, not the place) is one of my all-time favorite flicks. Since I was a kid I have idolized Humphrey Bogart. Strike that… I have idolized the characters who Humphrey Bogart brought to life. I suppose the credit is probably more deserving to the screenwriters than the actor, but he was...
I want to introduce you to someone. Her name is Josephina, and she has an interesting story. Actually, to call it “interesting” might be somewhat of a misnomer. She has a compelling story and a cautionary tale. She also represented a rare opportunity for me. I consider myself to be somewhat of an academic. If...
There are certain mandates in my life. Compared to others they are few, but they form the bedrock of my existence, at least the last 24 years of my existence when I married Sandy. The first is that whenever (and I mean whenever) we get off of an airplane back in Orange County, prior...
There is so much to write about these days I sometimes suffer from too many options. From draconian gun laws that are patently unconstitutional, to attempts to modify social norms by corporate interests, there is so much subject matter floating around I often get lost in the possibilities. Every so often, though (usually for...
We have certain characters… fictional characters… who have acted as proxy guides and, in some cases, guardian angels as we traverse the decades of our lives. Role models, and we absolutely need role models, help us to understand the amorphous goals of what we want to become. Sometimes these are purely career related; sometimes...
