There Are Four Teams

The Super Bowl is coming up, and while I'm not interested in sports, I know the basics: two teams vying for the supreme win of the year. This year will be the 60th, which tracks with how long I've been on this planet. My dad is

An Encounter in Central Park

This morning, I went to Central Park. It was fairly early, about 7:30 AM, and only a few people were milling about. I stopped in a cafe and grabbed a coffee and egg sandwich, and found a nice seat by some bushes. There was a bit of a breeze,

a wound turned into light

An hour ago, Jen and I were at an art exhibit. Or perhaps it was a gallery, or a show or an entire museum. I'm not exactly sure what the proper analogy is, but I know it was art. Fine art. The best kind of art, at least

Terms and Conditions May Apply

I live on the border of Lincoln Park and Lakeview on Chicago's North Side. It's a neighborhood on the upswing, with old warehouses and vacant lots filling with multi-million dollar town homes and condos. My wife and I, along with two fairly strange cats live in

January 21

One must survive these times, and there are many ways to do so. One way, is to escape to fantasy land.

Once Bitten

It's hard to believe something as unimportant as Facebook, a social media platform started by a horny-and-undesirable Harvard student, has caused so much strife in my life. But since I've made this struggle public (on Facebook) and have changed my mind a few times (on Facebook)

Lessons from the Witchcraft School

And then I heard him say something that I instantly typed into my notes app on my phone "Follow me please, into the showers."

Time Travel on the Danube River

I've been saying that "All travel is time travel" for some time now. When you visit a place, you also visit a time. You can go back to the place, but not the time. Las Vegas illustrates this in rapid fashion, where a 10 year span

A Value Proposition

I'm a terrible salesperson and worse marketeer. My inclination is to give everyone all the information I think they need and let them make a decision. And that's it. I don't want to sway them or add bias. "This product is good for

TOURIST GO HOME!

When I saw them dousing tourists with squirt guns at an outdoor restaurant on Las Ramblas in Barcelona, I was incensed. These diners traveled hundreds and thousands of miles to get to your country, are currently spending their money at tourist establishments, paying tourist prices, and you're spraying

The Unfinished

In November of 2016, I was asked to host a tour for a few dozen people transiting the Panama Canal. We sailed from San Diego and headed down to Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, though the canal, and then to Cartagena, Half Moon Cay (Holland America's private Bahamian island), finally

"It's Impossible"

How a banana led to the harsh truth These writings won't be exclusively about the sad state of cruising, but this story sheds some light on the last post. In December, 2023, I took a cruise on Celebrity Infinity from Barcelona to the Canary Islands, Morocco, and some

Jeff

Abandon Ship!

Cruising has changed. Plot a new course.

Peregrinus - The Foreigner

I've been around to a few places, and I've found that I often see things that others don't. These observations and thoughts lead to connections that might be interesting from time to time. So rather than have these thoughts live in my head, I&