(A pal is running a caption-this-picture contest from the State of the Union address last night.  Any suggestions?) I made a point of staying away from Willow last night. I wanted to have a clear head for the President’s remarks, and although I think I succeeded, I did not come away from the address with […]

(Sabrina the Fortune Teller. Photo Socotra) You don’t need a fortune-teller to see the future. It is plain and laying right there in front of us, obvious as the level of crisp happy hour wine in the tulip glass in front of us. That is one of the reasons that Sabrina has gone over from […]

It was a great weekend. The snow missed us, the farm was delightful, and there was a thoroughly surreal encounter with a component of Real America that is terse, determined, and making a concerted effort to be ready for whatever comes next. I don’t count myself in that number, at least not completely. I was […]

(The gutter that was crushed by Snowmaggedon 2010 has been repaired and painted. The work continues at Refuge Farm. Photo Socotra). I fell asleep in front of the fire after the Russians departed last night, and the marvelous food I procured at Croftburn Farms on the way down got cooked down into a darkened mass […]

(Sabrina the Gypsy Fortune-teller behind the Amen Corner at the Willow Bar. Photo Socotra). I was hunched over the computer yesterday, in bunny slippers, as the day slowly crept along. I never made it into work clothes, nor to the Willow, as I listened to the gathering storm hitting New York City and points north […]

(The Derrick Barge D/B Cappy Bisso. Photo Bisso Marine.) The Japanese government has revealed that its Japan Oil, Gas, and Metals National Corp. has dispatched a mining ship that will begin the world’s first offshore test to extract methane hydrate from the seabed…The oil, gas, and metal company’s deep-sea drilling ship Chikyu set sail last […]

I started the day writing an obit. This one happened to be for a man who was a senior officer in the business, and in whose orbit a lot of us operated on the gathering place of the Hawaiian Islands- lovely O’ahu. I posted the obit to the professional web site and filed a copy […]

(Zaire and the Major at Willow. Photo Socotra.) I was playing the great game last night at Willow. Well, not the Great Game- that is the one of men and women and eternity. This was the sub-set of it, the one right out of Stalky and Company and Rudyard Kipling. I was in the process […]

The Force got adjusted last night and it was a good thing, long overdue, as the President of the Willow Bar and Restaurant Alumni Association made a triumphant return to the scene of the crime last night. Waiting at the bar was John-with-an-H, sipping the happy Hour red and I slid into Old Jim’s traditional […]

(New Orleans Superdome after Katrina, 2005. Photo FEMA). I fully intended to step right up and write something high-minded and well-considered this morning about another really interesting expansion of Executive Branch authority this morning. It is really interesting, and highly classified, and profound about the digital medium in  which we shop, and bank and flirt […]