Santa Claus walked into Amazon headquarters one day and rang the service bell. “Where’s Jeff?” he yelled. “Mr. Bezos is in a meeting, eh, sir, and cannot be bothered,” said Rehnquist, the wide-eyed, nearly speechless, young, thin, clean-shaved, hairless look-alike assistant from behind a cluttered desk where he was filling out a requisition form for […]
A Different Drummer: Birdhouse building binge briefs
I’ve come up with a DIY approach to gift giving this year. The evolution of this bright idea began two years ago when two small birds built a nest in the upper corner of our back porch roof where cozy beams meet the post. Susan and I got to recline in our afternoon deck chairs […]
A Different Drummer: Drowning in digital photography
Organizing my photography is about to drive me mad. I don’t know whether to digitize my print photos, or print out my digital photos. To do both seems thorough, yet excessive. Still something needs done. I’m awash in over 50,000 digital photos. Let me first get the pros and cons in order. Security is the […]
A Different Drummer: A paisley pilgrimage to Woodstock
We came upon a child of God; he was walking along the road. We asked him to tell us where he was going, and this he told us: “I just got back from Yasgur’s Farm, checking out the rock ‘n’ roll bands, and I missed my bus. Can you give me a lift to Monticello?” […]
A Different Drummer: From the blues to rock ‘n’ roll
We’ve come ashore. The Gibbses and the Kittrells, retirees at sea for seven days in October when we used to be working, have stepped again on Florida soil. We’ve been on a Caribbean blues cruise, the Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise, to be exact. And to be exact, I’m spoiled. I want music on every […]
A Different Drummer: See blues over blue seas
Anchors aweigh! The 2017 fall Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise around the Caribbean aboard Holland America’s luxurious Nieuw Amsterdam has launched from Fort Lauderdale and is on its way to the islands of Curaçao and Aruba on a seven-day, 70-musician extravaganza adventure. On board, besides 1,808 other blues fans from around the world and us […]
A Different Drummer: A gripping tail of the dog that never was
It was a bleak November in Hill Valley, a fictional town invented by a local columnist to begin a short story because he felt the oxymoronic ambiguity juxtaposed in the title would allow him to be open in how he described the town because he as yet did not know what to make of it. […]
A Different Drummer: On being a man by the books
I’m not hard to figure out. As a person, I’m no mystery. I pretty much wear my life on my sleeve in this column. I share facets of my life others may never think to share, or would shudder to share. I have only a few private parts. Some people say, as they say, that […]
A Different Drummer: Fright Fest, the best in the west
Here’s our take on the Six Flags Discovery Kingdom Fright Fest extravaganza. We love it. Susan and I again took a couple of youth, our grandson Jack 13 and his Benicia friend Lucy, and let them run wild. We took them two years ago, stayed 11 hours, and walked 12 miles. This year we were […]
A Different Drummer: I’m no expert
I’m not an expert at anything anymore. Before I retired I was an expert on all sorts of things, Dante, commas, Google Docs. No one needs my help or advice much anymore. I don’t need to bone up on any particular subject. I can drift through the rest of my life as a dilettante. Curiosity […]