Out of respect for the terrible loss of life yesterday that occurred here in Santa Fe, I am going to hold my planned newsletter post until Monday. Thanks to those of you that sent along the news. Alec Baldwin Discharges Prop Gun and Kills One Colleague, Injures Second What a horrible accident and tragedy.

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS Santa Fe is proceeding as planned, big-time. Weather? Perfect. Condo and its location? Perfect. Every meal? Perfect. Halloween spirit? Also perfect. P.S. We had dinner last night at a trick Japanese resort in the foothills outside of Santa Fe proper. As we were leaving, Julie flirted innocently (as only she can) with ...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS Yesterday, we arrived for our 3 week stay in stunning Santa Fe, New Mexico. In case you're worried, our condo for the 3 weeks is Killer. I'll be mentioning highlights here, and sharing a photo or 7, but most of my reporting on Santa Fe will be via a Travel Guide when it's all over. In other words, don't worry: my inte...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS We're off on Sunday for our second longest trip of the year, 3 weeks in Santa Fe, so this will be a short and fun post, focused on the wonderful outdoors. In fact, it's so light and airy, I will again fly this newsletter's Happiness Flag. Even after last night's crushing defeat of our beloved Giants by the hated Dodge...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS On Monday, I bemoaned the capture of our state and federal legislatures by money. I will remind you of my broad indictment: When the downstream impacts are considered, the US is the most corrupt country on Earth. Today, I will explain the 3 solutions I proposed on Monday, Federally Funded Federal Campaigns, Open State...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS A while back, I went off on one of my tangents and rattled on about a lot of dreamy solutions to the major issues we all face. As I looked at my list, I realized that, while imagining it all happening together is pure fantasy, many/most/all of the individual items have at least some merit. You yourself may agree with ...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS We interrupt this broadcast for an important announcement. We now return you to our regularly scheduled broadcast. This is a purely fun post. No, really - look at those shirts! But it's mostly about games, especially if you consider jillion-dollar war planes to be "games", as I do. Tonight, our kick-ass SF Giants begi...

It's Friday afternoon, and we're poolside after another wonderful sunrise visit to Joshua Tree National Park. We're reminiscing. • I give a whole-hearted Textbook assessment to the wonderful Jake's Palm Springs. It is where we celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary, with dinner there on April 13. What a great dinner spot, right in the...

I flew from the gorgeous, new-ish (and nearly empty) Harvey Milk Terminal 1 from SFO to ALB on Saturday. For an airport, T1 at SFO is wonderful. Plus, the new AA Admiral's Club there is about as good as it gets (domestic benchmark = Alaska Airlines at SEA). Easy-peasy into ALB via a packed ORD, and in to the Serviceable Homewood Suites...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS Do you still watch TV? I will date myself among the cool kids that read this newsletter when I say: yes, I do. But much less and differently than I used to, of course. On-demand and live streaming changed everything. Today, I am going to explore alternatives to our current TV subscriptions, all streaming services: • Y...

It had been a long time - so long, in fact, Ol' Purple Label was still on husband #2, she and Fi Deuce still worked at Gap Inc., and I was just starting Casa Integration. Early aughts. It had been that long since we had visited The Sea Ranch, an extraordinary master-planned community dating to the mid 1960's. Here's a wonderful article...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS Sorry folks, today's newsletter is of the long - very long - variety. But you might not hate it. Plus, there are pictures! At least the upcoming Travel Guide for The Sea Ranch will be mercifully short. I bet you're familiar with President Franklin Roosevelt's January 6, 1941 State of The Union speech. No? I think you ...

Today, October 2, will always be a big day for me. For one, today, in London, is the day of our close friend Joanne Rutter's wedding. What a catch! But 10/2/19 is also the day I left TEECOM. And 10/2/20 is the day I learned I finished second for a dream job at The Presidio. So I am now 2 years to the day from the most humiliating exper...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS UNWASHED MASSES SPECIAL BULLETIN OMFG congratulations to Andy Jones and Libby Baines Jones: Libby gave birth last night to Dean Andrew Jones, Jr.! 10 seconds of seriousness: it's the first baby for these two and wow. These are two of the greatest people in the world and they've wanted a baby for a long time. Congratul...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS You might recall that earlier this year and joined by some close family, I sprinkled my mother's ashes at the grave site of her Aunt Ruth and Uncle Don Smith. It served as a degree of closure for me, as my relationship with my mother was complex - even more so than with most mothers and sons. While it's been 10 years ...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS I had taken to using "Tr***" when referring to Donald Trump, mostly as a pithy way of demonstrating my rejection of the man himself, as well as his mendacious and catastrophic presidency. The joking and humor is over. There is nothing funny about the evidence now out. If you are not familiar with "The Eastman Memo" (d...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS It's the weekend, so pull up a glass (after 10AM, please), and then, watch this. We want something else. Like Hawkeye Pierce, I can rant with the best of them, but I tend to focus on our problems as a country, vs. angst over having eaten a river of liver and an ocean of fish. So for a change, I present nothing but sol...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS As we climb the week together, I thought I'd give you a well-earned break from my typical sturm und drang. Today, we're going in to the Casa Integration media room in my mind, and screening in vivid meta the best movie of all time, and then, my favorite movie of all time. And for a special, super-duper break, apart fr...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS I was going to catalog all of Biden's missteps since taking office, but I don't have enough computing power here at the house. But as we're all throwing darts at Papa Joe, remember the French lost $90 billion when Oz decided to go with our nuke subs vs. their diesel ones. That may have something to do with their rathe...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS (For my many younger readers: today's title is a quote from Spiro Agnew, who was Richard Nixon's vice president. Until he resigned in disgrace over . . . corruption. Read on to see why I chose that for today's post title.) As part of his big push to get me to open up a proper reader's forum for this newsletter (done!)...

No, not this. And definitely not that nutty cult group. Instead, and at the request of several kind readers, but especially Bob Scarf and Raymond Michaels, I present to you: The Portico Darwin Forum It's at my website - there's a lot of stuff there that doesn't make it into the newsletter, and now there's this. But this time it's reall...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS Let's go through midweek with a short post and some smart, fun stuff from two very smart people. Plus, I've got a new feature I'll introduce in a special post tomorrow. How exciting for you, I know. I read and pushed this book on friends early and often upon its initial publishing in 2008 and now it's back. It was and...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS (Yes, I did publish essentially the same article on LinkedIn over the weekend. Hey, I'm multi-platforming, but apologies to my friends that might have seen this already.) Required disclaimer so I don't get somehow canceled as a wannabe communist: I love capitalism. I've read some about the alternatives, and shocker: c...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS Before I start, I must comment on the hysteria over President Biden's new vaccine mandates. Many are pointing to the fact that Biden and some on his staff had said previously they wouldn't impose them. Since then: • the Delta mutation of the virus exploded, and it is far more contagious and also impacts children • the...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS And you thought it was over? Our most insane of any travel year (actually, it started in July of 2020)? No, it's decidedly not over, and in fact, it's spilling (sloshing?) wildly into 2022. Warning: this is no humble brag post. This is a full-on, beg-from-the-rooftop "Look at me!" explosion of attention-seeking bragga...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS Happy Labor Day. I hope you'll get out enjoy yourself, as we will. The main parade ground at The Presidio may never be the same again. Despite the new SF resident Ol' Purple Label saying Adam Grant is not that cool (the big-shot executive met him personally - of course she did), I still enjoyed his book "Think Again" ...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS Following is the fun, holiday-focused part of the blog, but I must first comment on the new Texas law outlawing abortions beyond approximately 6 weeks into the pregnancy. Texas mandates that a private business can't require a patron to don a mask, because that's too much of an intrusion on personal liberty. At the sam...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS Who says it's always about me? I will demonstrate it isn't by turning over the reins today to the astute prose critic Primo Harvey, PhD. That's in honor of some excellent writing he did on a subject that needs more reflection by us as a country: the myth of American Exceptionalism. But it's also because he and fellow ...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS Enough with the bad vibes in the world and let's start the week with an easy puzzle. What's unusual about this photo? And be specific, beyond the obvious . . . the answer is below KLUF. And now for something no one - and God, I mean no one - was asking for. Here is a slideshow of the first cars I ever owned, right up ...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS I had a typically pithy post all written and ready, but that seems stupid and disrespectful now, in light of yesterday's terrorist attack in Kabul. At this point, how or why we're surprised at the barbarism of these zealots escapes me. We're leaving with our empire's tail between our legs and that still warrants suici...