For the first time in about ten years, we visited Ashland, Oregon and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. We enjoyed two Shakespeare plays, a musical by Steven Sondheim, and a dramatization of Lyndon Johnson’s struggles between civil rights, The Great Society, and the Vietnam War. Ashland is a wonderful setting for attending plays, shopping, eating, and relaxing. We “discovered” Ashland in 1973 when Lorraine had a business trip here in connection with her insurance career. I tag
If you follow the annual Christmas letter you are familiar with Lorraine’s quote of the year. I start collecting them for a year before I compose the letter. I thought I would post the quotes that didn’t make this year’s message. I’m organizing my desk to a certain extent. I’m missing some things. That’s a lotta damn fish. I don’t know how you go from having enough time to not having enough time I don’t want to do anything, I just want to goof off today. I’m not going to subs
I usually have two books going at once, one a work of fiction and the other some kind of history book. With the Kindle I can have three or four going at once. I’ve been nibbling at the Memoirs of Ulysses Grant for more than a year, but that doesn’t count in the two. The basic Kindle has a limitation in history since maps don’t do well and maps are pretty important. The iPad* does maps better, but it’s not as convenient as the Kindle. The iPad is prettier, but heavier. The iPa
I just completed a couple of desktop home movie projects, another genre of the technology revolution. I was a participant in the growth of amateur movies starting with silent Super 8, graduating to sound, then to video tape, then to digital. Now I’ve done home movies, really good quality, on my phone. How great is that? Thomas Edison gave us the motion picture, but it was a commercial and industrial mystery with little being done by the amateur. Camera equipment was expensive
It’s been a year of premiers, the big events that mark chapters in life. Where to start? We all strolled the red carpet to meet Kellen Richard Wilma on August 29 (don’t ask what we wore). He is our first grandchild and he continues to enrich all our lives. He even has his own Facebook page. One forgets how, with an infant around, the conversation changes to erp rags, oneseys, and the contents of diapers. Lorraine and I have signed up to watch him one day a week when his mom g
My wife Lorraine and I tagged along on this property hunting trip because it seemed like a harmless way to spend a Sunday. I hadn’t been up to Whidbey in 30 or 35 years. My son, Matt, a realtor, had been showing houses and lots to my sisters Patti and Sally for some time. We all had a mild fantasy of some day owning a large family vacation property together, but for me, it was mild fantasy, very mild. Who has that kind of money these days? I have never owned vacation property
I have been collecting quotes from Lorraine that either offer an insightful comment on the world at large or just upon her world. I will post the good ones hereput the best one for the Christmas letter. I move this post forward on the blog as new quotes come to light. On meeting with her CPA: “It made me feel really good, that I’m not crazy and I’m not a bad business person.” On her office: “You have to pretend you didn’t see this. The corner over there on the floor looks rea