Category Archives: Daily Drama

This blog is coming to you courtesy of the wireless access at the Hampton Inn in West Hazelton, PA. I am blogging in my room without the nuisance of finding and using the data connection on the room phone. I just fired up the laptop and it informed me that the hotel had a connection waiting for me. Did that ever bring a smile to my face. Another Christmas present!

In the last few years, getting internet access on the road has been transformed from an ordeal to effortless simplicity. Two years ago I crossed the country twice while moving from San Jose, California to Charlottesville, Virginia. On those trips, too many motels either had no internet access or an expensive and slow dial-up access. I was offline for two whole weeks, an eternity in internet time.

Since then, wireless internet access has been creeping relentlessly across the country. Our five-year old Toshiba laptop recently started producing pop-up windows announcing wireless network connections. We didn’t know that it had wireless capability, and now it won’t shut up. Every time we turn it on, it finds more and more open connection points.

Continue reading →

I want to wish all of you a happy holiday season and tell you how much I have enjoyed your visits and your emails. We can’t all curl up in a warm place with our old photos like Buffy, but … Continue reading →

We have these choices in life: (1) working to improve things, (2) whining about the unfairness of it all, or (3) voting with our feet. When you are in a company, a country, or a relationship that is not
working and offers no prospect of ever working for you, you can always
vote with your feet.

I personally prefer working to improve things, but have occasionally chosen to vote with my feet. I don’t give up easily, but there are times when you cannot improve a situation, no matter how hard you try. Then it is time to move on, or you are helping to perpetuate the situation.

The expression originally was applied to the emigration of individuals from one country to another that offered more opportunity. It is the ultimate solution in a relatively free society. It is an expression, when Googled, which turns up some fascinating tidbits:

Continue reading →

Today is the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, an event which changed the way America saw itself and galvanized this nation to enter the Atomic age. During the next four years, battles raged around the world, millions of people died, and the course of history was changed forever.

Prophetically, it was a Japanese Admiral who first sensed the paradigm shift he had unleashed.

"I fear that we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve"

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto
Empire of Japan
December 7th, 1941

We can remember Pearl Harbor as a day of infamy, or we can look at it as an object lesson of what happens when a nation becomes complacent and ignores what goes on beyond its borders.

We were forced into a horrific war which culminated in the unleashing the forces of Armageddon upon Japan. We later went on to rebuild the country that we destroyed and have established economic and cultural bonds that have enriched both nations.

America was changed by that event, but Japanese culture was changed almost beyond recognition. The point I am trying to make is that we need to remember our heroes and their sacrifices, but we should also recognize that our defense of liberty and the effort to spread freedom is the most important memorial of all.

Continue reading →