The youngest member of our party is a bright 14-year-old who is very good at chess. He drew our attention to what is probably the most beautiful chess set I have ever seen. The pieces represent Mayans and Conquistadors, and the details are quite exquisite. The chess set […]
This morning was the perfect day to visit the archeological site at Tulum where there are the ruins of an ancient Mayan city. It was walled to the west and faced the Caribbean Sea to the east. The site was inhabited as early as 564 A.D. and remained […]
Humans started making tools about 90,000 years ago and it took all that time for us to realize we could put our luggage on wheels. Whoever first came up with that idea is brilliant and we should all bow down in obeisance to that genius. Here’s another simple […]
This is my first day in Playa del Carmen in Mexico and I am exhausted, delighted, and overwhelmed. I arrived here with my son Ken and his family, Julie and Hayden, at 7:15 AM local time which was 4:15 in our heads. We took a shuttle to our […]
Here are some pictures of me taken in my glory days. I was somewhere between 19 and 22 or 23 and going through a somewhat rebellious period. Not very rebellious. Just a little.
I am spending most of February with my Canadian family and flew today from San Jose California to Edmonton Alberta via Seattle. Here are some of the views I had from the planes I took.
Yesterday I was early for my appointment with my tax accountant so I decided to get in a few extra steps by walking a couple of blocks down the road. As I did so, it occurred to me that the sky looked a little like the transgender flag […]
As I work on a jigsaw puzzle, I have the TV on and I am listening to the Senate impeachment trial. It occurred to me that the House members representing the prosecution are organizing the presentation of the evidence in much the same way that I tackle a […]
Here are a few more murals that I was able to photograph this week. It was a cloudy day but the colorful images actually stand out nicely against the gray background.
After walking for about an hour today, I decided to take a break by sitting in the outdoor seating area of a downtown San Jose coffee shop that is on a pedestrian walkway. As I turned into Paseo de San Antonio, two people with clipboards beckoned me to […]
A little while ago I was visiting with some family members and my nephew noticed my phone. It was an iPhone 5S and it worked just fine for me. My nephew commented on it and made me take a second look. I can’t remember what he said, exactly, […]
While I was out walking today, I went past the former Camera 12 cinema in downtown San Jose. It has been closed since September 2016 and was to be redeveloped. The plans have apparently stalled but someone somewhere is trying to make the best of it. The last […]
From time to time I see a message that someone has written and I wonder who they are. Why did they write it? Who did they think would read it? Is it a message for the moment or for posterity? Here are some of those messages: […]
The ways in which some reporters get their material and write it up has sometimes bothered me. I’m not talking about the steady, evidence-based, well-researched articles in reliable media. I’m talking about the information-distortion that goes on mostly in the tabloids. You all know what I mean. The […]
I have been an avid user of Twitter for a couple of years. You might say I’ve been enamored or addicted. Today, though, I decided our love affair is over. It’s been good, Twitter, but you became abusive. Now I have chosen to leave. For a few months […]
Happy New Year! It amazes me to realize that I have been maintaining this blog for a decade. I would not have imagined that to be possible when I began it. The years 2010-2019 have been full of new experiences, accidents, and opportunities. I have moved from Red […]
On a car journey on Interstate 80 in California over the holiday, some family members and I saw something unusual on the horizon on our right-hand side. We were all wondering what we were looking at. Some of us thought it was snow on mountains behind foothills; others […]
Every year, when I come to San Jose, I am delighted to see flowers. It amuses my sister to see me taking pictures of what seem to her to be unexceptional blooms, but when you come from a snowscape, greenery and blossoms are a lovely contrast. Today I […]
I am a snowbird who travels south for the winter. When I get there I have a bird of paradise plant on my patio.
