(It was picture perfect at Refuge Farm on an early November day. The sky was North Carolina Blue, if I may be permitted the geographic anomaly. Photo Socotra). I think we should just let the clocks alone. I have been up since “0300” and this is an affront to nature. it was lasagna with the […]

(Happy Hour White, a peach martini and candlelight at the Willow Halloween party. Photo Socotra.) Now that time is getting short. There is not much television time left before this electoral circus is in the lap of the Gods, I am not buying any advertising, and will let this thing play out on its own. […]

(The Socotras flank Mac earlier this month. Photo ONI.) Mike had the little brass box that contained his Dad’s earthly remains. Mac was in place on a low table in front of the Sanctuary at the Lutheran Church up Rt 50. He was punctual, and the Color Guard from the Office of Naval Intelligence was […]

(RADM Donald “Mac” Showers at Pearl Harbor last June. Photo Dave Showers). It was Halloween yesterday and All Souls Day today. It is an appropriate one for Mac’s memorial ceremony at the Faith Lutheran Church down Route 50. I am really disoriented- Admiral Paul stopped by Willow yesterday afternoon at cocktail hour and Old Jim […]

(General Carter Ham, USA. Photo US Army). There is nothing particularly spooky about this Halloween, though it was painfully close when I rolled home from Uncle Julio’s last night. Willow had given up and was closed, so the Mexican place was jumping with deferred energy. It was strange watching the bartender mixing chocolate milks for […]

(The view from the balcony at Big Pink. The wind is starting to rise this morning as the capital braces for shock. Photo Socotra). Alrighty, then. Yesterday was the day to get organized and maybe feel a grim, tingling sense of predestination. I have eggs, batteries, alcohol and a bad attitude all in place, ready […]

The Russians were over for dinner at the farm last night. It has been two weeks since I was on the property and a lot has changed. The scarlet leaves out the kitchen window have dropped from the branches and their color is a forlorn brown in a heap near the roots. Fall fell. So […]

(The Piper of the 46th Naval Intelligence Dining In. He’s an acoustic physicist in his day job.) The storm is coming, so we will drop any pretense at literary devices, cute asides of extended metaphors. This is going to be a wet week, at a minimum, and the maximum…well, it could really suck. Hurricane Sandy- […]

I was trained as a worst-case analyst of military capabilities and human nature. Accordingly, I knew things were going to get worse. Sure enough, they have. I have veered over into denial over the performance of the Tigers. They got body-slammed by the Giants again last night, and are going back to Detroit two games […]

Our Boss at THIRD Fleet, Vice Admiral herb “The Superb” Browne used to say “nothing good happens after midnight.” He was usually referring to the arrests or incidents in Tijuana at the Monday morning staff recitation of human failure. I would expand it to other events on the Left Coast, last night’s case in point […]