Category: DailySocotra

Grilling and Pickle Soup

(The Cuyahoga River on fire in this file photo. It has not burned since. Photo AP). I know- it does feel like spring is around the corner this morning. It is about time- and I have to remember to swap out the propane tank on the grill and get ready for the outdoor cooking season. […]

Clarke’s In the Rain

“Yo! Vic!” I was startled in the rain. I keep to myself when I am down in the country, for the most part, though there was an animated conversation with The Russians about where Mr. Putin is hiding these days as Mattski replaced the hot water heater at his farm, and Biscuit the Wonderspaniel and […]

Net Neutrality

(FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has released the net neutrality rules on the agency’s Web site. AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais). http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2015/db0312/FCC-15-24A1.pdf You can read the statements from Chairman Wheeler and the other FCC Commissioners starting at page 314 of the document, which has been secret until now. I missed a chance to comment- the Commission cut […]

Local Motion

I imagine you have been following the follies here in town- it is spectacular, and hard to get away from. I won’t deal with the events in Ferguson- that is too horrific. But as to the digital scandals in progress the Attorney General joins the former Secretary of State and the former Director of the […]

Rust Never Sleeps

I missed posting a story yesterday, not because there is a lack of material. I was going to write about salt crust, and the fact that my car is slowly disintegrating down in the garage due to the effects of the mountains of corrosive salt that was dumped on the streets of the capital to […]

Lost Weekend

(Ray Milland in the Billy Wilder movie that won four Academy Awards. Jane Wyman has a solid supporting role in this account of a miserable writer who goes on a three day binge. In the Fleet we would have considered him a lightweight- most port visits went four days. Photo Warner Brothers). Yeah, the time […]

Old Jim’s Big Trip

(Headquarters of Yandex, 16, Leo Tolstoy St., Moscow 119021, the internet browser and service provider that controls 60% of the Russian market). We got a chance to have some grand fun at Jim’s expense last night. It wasn’t his fault, not in the slightest. As you may have gathered, Jim is a Luddite, and clings […]

Hurricane Party

(The Official Total snowfall not reported at IAD or DCA was measured with a Sear’s Craftsman tape-measure for accuracy and precision, it was four inches deep, dead on. Sears is apparently going out of the retail business and attempting to turn itself into a commercial real estate concern, selling off their old stores. Too bad- they sold […]

Spring Fever

I am sitting here looking out the window. I have got the fever, big time. The heavy white snow first turned to a grayish wet mass as it cooled the blacktop of the Big Pink parking lot, and then it turned white. Now it is piling up as the heavy snow bands cross over the […]

Musashi and the Octopus

(The pug nose of the mighty battship, IJN Mushashi. Less famous than her illustrious sister Yamato, she was sunk in the battle of the Leyte Gulf, the IJN attempt to defeat MacArthur’s landings in the Philippines. Photo Paul Allen). Yesterday, the news spread rapidly , first by Twitter, that Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen (and one […]