Author: vicSocotra

SPC IAL AFTERNOON EDITION

The south end of the Conference Table rests on stacked cinder blocks. Vic’s recliner failed this morning. It had been his command chair since the move. Getting it out of the apartment and the matching chair repositioned into the office nook became a major operation — one of those logistical campaigns that feels outsized when […]

Monday Marching Monks

Rocket was unexpectedly alert this morning, and he raised a hand at Miles to make a statement at the Morning Meeting. “The Buddhist monks are doing a Fifteen Minute County demonstration today. It took a while. They started walking northeast from Fort Worth, Texas, 108 days ago. The national media has been distracted by kidnappings, […]

Bullet Proof

Dick Nixon told us that “everything we knew about Vietnam was wrong,” except for the end of it. Our pal Jake served in Saigon in the waning days, and then as a promising young officer in the Intelligence Plot of the Chief of Naval Operations. By the spring of 1975, it was all over but […]

Nothing Is Easy

That was true in 1972, when a Jethro Tull album cover sat in a Chi Phi basement room and rocked hard, long before the Islamic Republic was a news item and before any of us imagined how strange the future would get. It’s still true now. There was a time when our curious carnival of […]

Note Book

We tried the new header graphic the other morning. It was supposed to show what we thought might be happening on Monday, but what showed up was the bedraggled green note book with the when the air came out of the Budget and the Government shut down and the SnowCrete that still has everything frozen […]

Groundhogs & Snowcrete

Socotra House starts chipping the sidewalk. We were set to roll out the new header format this morning, now that we’re coming back online. That’s on hold—for the same reason most things are. Groundhog Day ceremonies kicked off at 8:30 across the river at Dupont Circle. Clear as a bell. Rocket and Melissa took an […]

Ivy Mike

We were waiting for the Bomb Cyclone to arrive yesterday afternoon with a certain apprehension. The publicity has been a little hysterical. The storm had not been given a proper name, so the talk drifted to the subject of bombs instead. It was already 1600 local. Skies went gray for an hour or two before […]

Lucky 13

There was befuddlement in the 4th Floor Conferences Room. We had closed out the evening with festive beverages and the basketball game up in East Lansing. We had expected the next storm to sweep Iin starting late yesterday afternoon. The bets for what was had been for nine inches of new fluffy snow. Instead, sunrise […]

In Between

The Trillium building’s majestic lobby seems like it is busier this week. That is a function of some of the staff being forced to stay over at the building due to the snow compacted under the ice coating of the frozen sleet. We support the stay over, since that means a slightly shorter wait for […]

Snow Day & 15-Minute County Update

We think Bob an Edith decided to delay the announcement of the closing of their North Arlington location until the Snow Days we are trapped in are over. That diner has been serving up hotcakes and eggs for more than twenty years. The chain has been a family-owned business for 55 years and we can […]