I had a pensive session with Old Jim on Tuesday; the news from the Navy Yard had made me lachrymose. We established a theme for our meeting on Wednesday, which was supposed to be about the current fiscal reality and concepts on how we can cobble together some sort of reliable income stream. Jim figures […]

So, the JG’s Explorer has a problem. He tried to have it in apple-pie order in order to put it to bed for the years he will be gone, but some things could not be fixed. Some bandit charged the air conditioner with new coolant, but it fizzed out. Before I take the vehicle down […]

There was a Commander in khaki uniform down the bar when I walked in. We occasionally have uniforms in the place, but I don’t abuse my former status and intrude on their privacy- Willow is not the VFW, after all. I said “Hi” to Old Jim and John-with-an-H leaned over and told me the CDR […]

Well, that is it. Done, fini, over. Mary Margaret took the opportunity to throw a party on Joe’s patio, starting whenever, and events swept us away with a rush as powerful as the jet of the filler nozzle at the deep end of the pool. I was ambivalent. I got back up north with the […]

Damn, halfway through the month and I cannot even believe it is started. I checked the weather, of course: more rain falling on my drenched pals in Colorado and more flooding, and a typhoon headed for the JG in Japan. So many things to keep straight these days. I wanted to pull together some seasonal […]

“I understand there has been a lot of anxiety. People aren’t sure what to make of it. They’re worried about a new agency and how it will exercise its authority. But we’ve been reasonable, open-minded, accessible and genuinely focused on trying to get this right.” – Richard Cordray, five time winner of the television game […]

I got a note from Japan this morning. The JG has landed, and his time in the Fleet has commenced. I am relieved that his travel by air on 9/11 and landing on Friday the Thirteenth passed uneventfully. I am now able to go back to worrying about other things. The radio is briefing me […]

Busy morning. I am texting back and forth with the JG who is at the Air Mobility counter at SEATAC, checked in, but still more than three hours from boarding the flight to Yokota, surrounded by enlisted Marines. He was briefly alarmed that there might be no beverage service on the charter flight. I told […]

(The way things used to be. Photo Wikipedia) The usual suspects are pretty wound up this morning. We have been back and forth about the President’s Speech last night, the media coverage of it, the Million Muslim March that is supposed to happen later this afternoon on Pennsylvania Avenue, and the successful recall of the […]

It has been a wild week here in Washington as our elected fools return to determine the Fate of the West, or at least the fate of the Administration. It has been high drama throughout the legislative break as we have lurched from coalition to unilateral action by the Commander-in-Chief, to a sudden reversal to […]