(Robert Michael Gates, Secretary of Defense) There was a solid thump on the floor yesterday. The Budget of the Defense Department of the United States of America was announced by the short gray man who is its Secretary.   I like Bob Gates, even if the echo of his sensible black wing-tip shoe dropping on […]

(A Classic Loner) I have been thinking a lot about weapons lately, the ones on all sorts of scales. The North Koreans tried to assert themselves in a major way over the weekend and failed. Several Americans, or recent immigrants to America, asserted themselves successfully against family and strangers alike.   The media ominously reports […]

(South Koreans watch coverage of the rocket launch. New York Times photo)   It is entirely possible that a little metal sphere is whizzing around the earth broadcasting tinny martial music about the greatness of the Dear Leader this morning. Even if it is not, some people will claim that it is. I do not […]

Everyone in the movie knew this was not going to be a great day.   I knew that the Hubrismobile needed new front tires, and I had been shopping hard for the best price in town. I don’t know what it going to happen, and I figure that you may as well stay on top […]

  (Captain’s gig on crane)   I saw the Dalmatian Doc yesterday on one of the four visits that the health care plan is going to grant me to deal with the creeping arthritis. This officially was visit number two, and the Doc is trying all sorts of things.   He got his training for […]

(Kitchen in The Dumbarton Model at The Madison at Ballston Station) It was an unsettling weekend, all around. The weather lurched from a gray drizzle to a brush with sunshine and temperatures that scraped the high sixties.   Mother Nature could not seem to make up her mind, and the Visiting Dog gave not a […]

  (Rendering of The Madison at Ballston Station) The phone on the wall of the glass air-lock was one of those mystery devices with a scrolling menu intended to allow you to call the boxes inside only it you already know something about the people you want to contact inside.   Back at Big Pink, […]

(The Visiting Dog)   The Visiting Dog tugged at me, dragging me forward along the fresh white concrete sidewalk next to the fresh blacktop. This had been an alley that ran along the old Buckingham Village garden home, separated by a stern but decorative fence from the high-rise assisted living facility at Culpepper Garden.   […]

  The pelting rain made me think of Dwight Eisenhower, which is a bit of a leap, I’ll grant, but capitalism in the microcosm has much in common with the awesome decision that resulted in the commitment to hurl the Allied Forces against Hitler’s Atlantic Wall at D-Day in 1944.   Like Dwight, the Hermanos Brothers Paving Company had all […]

(LT Richard Welsch) No story this morning- dog pooped in the bathroom, had to write an obit, blah blah, and a nine o’clock I have to run to. Rain, so no Mexicans paving.  The President is going to take questions from the American people via internet later today, confirming my suspicion that he thinks he was […]