page contents Google

SECOND OPINIONS SAVED THE D-DAY

When the truth feels a little sketchy? Get a second opinion. A real estate agent listed my English mother in law’s house in Culver City, CA. They talked about the market, then the price. The real estate lady gave her best number. My mother in law disagreed, too low, and gave her number. It sold […]

PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS, pt2: FAMILY TRAUMA

Illness defines family trauma over time and it’s exhausting. Remember the movie Ordinary People? The family dynamic wasn’t defined by illness, but death of a child. It didn’t go well for the emotional state of all. There’s was a sudden adjustment with a lifetime effect. Living with a pre-existing condition, or around others with pre-existing […]

MONEY MEN, GENERALS, DANCE THE DANCE

  In a band of money men and retired generals, who plays which instrument?   Extreme wealth and unlimited power have one thing in common: they know how to close the deal. It might not be an ideal exchange, but it sets up a better one. Money men know how to roll with economic downturns. […]

PEARL HARBOR, NEW HISTORY STUDENT GUIDE

How to explain Pearl Harbor in 2016. While years speed by history lays at risk, Pearl Harbor in particular. Names and places change, motives revealed, but the dead stay dead. New students may have trouble gripping the scope of WWII, but Pearl Harbor needs to stay constant. The sneak attack that will live in infamy […]

VETERAN SOLUTIONS FOR VETERAN PROBLEMS

If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of veteran problems. The biggest veteran problems come when those who served say, “I didn’t sign up for this.” What is the ‘this’ in “I didn’t sign up for this?” The ‘this’ veterans talk about is the hard part for non-veterans to understand. Even veterans of […]

FATHER’S DAY LONG REMEMBERED

My wife’s dad passed away when she was nineteen. That’s him with his eyes wide open. Looks like a fun guy. From all reports he was a fun guy. Outgoing, loud, opinionated. He’d have fit right in with my group. He moved to America from England with a stop in Canada along with his wife […]

MODERN MILITARY GENIUS MISTAKE

How does military genius work? Start with technology. Military genius understands the role of technology. They’re geniuses for a reason. And they study stuff. Military genius comes in two flavors, weapons and tactics. It doesn’t take a genius to understand the evolution of weapons. Tactics are harder. The knife wins hand to hand fighting. The […]

BABY BOOMER ANTHOLOGY, A LIFE IN COMMON

Every family has a man with so much backbone you’d think he has two of them. Such a man might have been injured on the job and took up another line of work. Maybe that man was a logger who broke his back in the woods and took up ranching. His biggest regret was missing […]

AVOID ANNIVERSARY MOVIES

A Divorce Downer Of Old Movies. The plan: A nice wedding anniversary with the family followed by a weekend at the same beach you went to on your honeymoon. If anniversaries are a tradition, so is the beach trip. You book your favorite cabin, the one with unobstructed view of the ocean…from the bathroom. Pack […]

WHO GETS FOOLED AGAIN? WHO? WHO?

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Baby boomers grew up with The Man. It wasn’t daddy, but daddy knew The Man. Sometimes daddy was on The Man reserve. Who is The Man? It’s the police Man. We saw him at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The Man swung a hard […]