TODAY'S RAMBLINGS My streak of glorious weather on visits to the posh-ish Bellaire district of Houston and Fave cousin Dr. Shelly Murphy's Villa grinds to a halt. Yesterday, Thursday, it was windy and quite cool outside upon my arrival (sidebar: I was impressed by United's Polaris Class seating on the narrow-body 757 which I took here ...

Phew - somewhat like the last election, I feel America had a near-death experience re: the Chauvin trial. Hard to imagine what our country would look like this morning if the jury had gone all Simi Valley on us. I am hopeful The Blue Line has finally been broken and this is the start, however tiny, of true accountability for the action...

While there is plenty to be said for Santa Barbara proper, we really have come to prefer staying in a town just a few miles south, Montecito. Benignly notorious for its hands-off approach towards the rich and/or famous, Montecito offers the ultimate combo of weather, mountains, trees/greenery, city, beach and ocean. If someone said "Sh...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS First, some travel trivia (mixed with my own opinion - shocker): name the 4 world capitals. And by "capital", I don't mean in a governmental sense. Rather, what 4 cities are the premiere hubs of business, culture, food, etc.? My answer - and of course there is no "right" answer - is below. Today we head home to SF fro...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS As I occasionally do, I'm going to turn the reigns of this part of the blog over to someone much smarter than I. In this case, it's the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush. This past Friday, The Washington Post published an excellent editorial by 43 on his recommendations for a reasonable immigration p...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS 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 ...

As you'd imagine, it is extremely gratifying (not to mention humbling) when something you write motivates someone to thoughtfully respond. And when that someone is as brilliant as the young man that wrote this is, well, let's just say I'm very happy this morning. But also smarter, from having read his reply to my Calling on Republicans...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS Apologies in advance for this one. It's political and there's no way around it. But it's also a call for help. Albeit from poolside in Palm Springs. America desperately needs a functioning federal government, consisting of at least 2 fact- and reason-based political parties. Today, we barely have one. Consider each of...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS Today is our 30th wedding anniversary. On April 13, 1991 a small group of friends and family gathered in Boulder at The Hotel Boulderado for our marriage. That's us with our mothers on this very day 30 years ago. The rest has been sheer bliss. Right? Julie, right? And here's a bit later, in the Dolomites. The fact is,...

Note: there are quite a lot of photos in this blog post - if this doesn't load properly, try this link to view the post online. If you'll recall, the tagline to this blog is "Plans to Enjoy Life". So here's a plan for visiting Joshua Tree National Park when staying in greater Palm Springs. We've enjoyed roughly this same approx. 6 hour...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS About a year ago, the cloud software company Basecamp, started an email service called Hey. (The company's founders also wrote my biz book fave, It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work, and the equally influential Rework) Hey is part of a nascent but growing movement of companies attempting to counter the civically corros...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS As I will occasionally do, I am going to try and make a point via the brilliance of others. And they don't get much more brilliant than John McWhorter. Some call it "cancel culture", but I do prefer "consequence culture", for many of the reasons Professor McWhorter cites in this podcast. I've read his insightful book ...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS Disclaimer: I do what I'm faulting others for in the rant that follows. With that said: enough with the overwrought thank you's to wait staff. To baristas. To the people that wash your car. To any server or laborer that's directly doing something for you. Friends, they're doing their jobs, and our virtue signaling via...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS After a harrowing drive down a typically treacherous I-5, and an almost as harrowing meal at a "steakhouse" in the perfectly awful "Town Center" (at least it wasn't "Centre") in Santa Clarita on Friday night, we arrive at the very special Cove House in Palm Springs Saturday afternoon. Will we get over having it only t...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS This is the third installment of an occasional ongoing series where I'll try to pass on knowledge, etc. that I've found useful and helpful. Here are the first and second in the series. My decision to move on from my own show at Casa Integration led to me being a big consumer of business-oriented self-help and/or impro...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS The last few days in Tupper Lake and The Adirondacks were warm and sunny, in the upper 50's most days. I had a great last dinner in town with Bulleit Bob and his lovely wife Betty at the Tupper Lake stalwart Little Italy. Great way to wrap up a great trip. The food was actually quite impressive - I'd say Textbook, but...

It's awful that the next sentence is a cliché' now. In the wake of yet another tragic mass shooting in the United States . . . I decided to post something that I've mentioned to some of you over the years. It is my proposal for somehow getting a grip on the gun plague in America. 1. Guns are dangerous - even the most ardent gun enthusi...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS I'd like to share with you some of the podcasts to which I listen regularly. These brilliant people make me a bit smarter and/or less crazy (or at least I like to tell myself) with every listen. And they make my exercise routine (daily 4-5 mile walks) much more enjoyable. Here they are. Kara Swisher and her influentia...

Warning: this may offend some viewers, or at least those with ears. Live Concert Footage from Murphy Manor

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS Well, you can't say this blog is pointless. In fact, due to these very ramblings, I had the honor of hosting on Saturday the elder of the Darwin family, cherished first cousin and spiritual wunderkind Lally Darwin Heinz Esq. and her uniquely delightful husband, the storied jurist Harrison Heinz, for lunch Saturday her...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS It was just a beautiful St. Patrick's Day here yesterday. Warm and sunny, as you can see below. While I mostly respect and support the regulatory regime in place for decades to keep the Adirondack State Park primarily a wilderness area, and avoid tourist fiascos like Lake George Village, I just do not understand how a...

And this is just a small part of Murphy Manor!

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS 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 Serviceab...

TODAY’S RAMBLINGS As I embark in a few moments on the 3rd (here's the first and the second) of about a zillion wacky things I'm doing this year, I find myself feeling a massive amount of gratitude for being able to retire or at least semi-retire. I'd like to express that gratitude, but in a different way. I think the topic of this blog...

Housekeeping: I've added headers because I'm OCD! There's today's post, feedback from subscribers, and the music section ("KLUF" is another outcropping of my vivid [drug- and alcohol-addled?] imagination). Thank you for reading. TODAY'S RAMBLINGS Those that know me know that I like to push books on my friends - like all of the time. So...

While it may seem ludicrous splurging on a fat-cat hotel a scant 5 minutes from one's home, it is not to your inveterate traveler friend, Portico Darwin. This past weekend, Julie, me, and senior exec/real estate mogul Ol' Purple Label spent 3 glorious (and sodden) nights at Cavallo Point: The Lodge at Golden Gate, and I will say after ...

Sometimes, I'll just let someone much smarter than I carry the load. I give you Scott Galloway, a professor at the NYU Stern School of Business, and a general badass (look him up and listen to his podcasts and/or watch his YouTube vids). To me, his blog post is about the power of love and time - but what did you draw from it? https://w...

On December 15, 2000, dear friend Arthur, my better half and wife Julie, and I attended an Everclear concert at The Warfield in San Francisco. They were touring in support of the second volume of their "Songs From an American Songbook" albums. Good show, not great (the official term is "Serviceable") but out of it came my nom de plume,...

Obnoxious? Yes. Of course, you could always start your own blog and use your own rating system . . . You can count on seeing these often. About hotels. Headphones. National Parks. Maybe even the occasional scoundrel. I've given examples! Diamond Certified: typically a travel and occasionally, a restaurant or gear, rating. It is the pin...

Portico Darwin is back - subscribe at the bottom of this message to my new blog to get the latest on gear, books, music, travel, dining, intoxicants, recipes, and current events. Anything political will be reason-, fact-, and evidence-backed. Every few days, I'll be posting something that caught my eye or ear or more. My ego gone wild?...