Wisdom of the Ages

Wisdom of the Ages

by | Mar 2, 2012 | 0 comments

Patsy, our travel agent, says we have a black cloud over us when it comes to DFW and American Airlines, but it only happens when S. is with me.  This time the mechanical bug bit our aircraft, and we had to wait for another.  It was only a two hour delay which didn’t actually matter much to us as we planned to overnight in Miami, but the one hundred or so other fellow travelers who were making connections in Miami got the shaft. We finally landed and after the world’s longest runway taxi we disembarked only to be confronted with the world’s longest terminal walk.  It was a least six miles I promise you.  Unfortunately, it took half the walk schlepping one...
Romney, There You Go Again

Romney, There You Go Again

by | Feb 24, 2012 | 0 comments

I said I’d never do it but I did.  I watched another episode of the long running  political comedy called The GOP Primary Debates-2012.  I can’t explain why I did it.  There were some perfectly good basketball games on as well as some reruns of NCIS that I had only seen three or four times.  I guess it must have been the Icarus effect.  I won’t insult your intelligence by retelling the story of hubris and arrogance that led Icarus….suffice it to say, I couldn’t help myself. I knew I was going to have a problem with this one though because the field is now reduced to four, which means that each of them would have more time to talk.  I don’t mind listening...
Sticks and Stones…

Sticks and Stones…

by | Feb 1, 2012 | 0 comments

My first memory of name calling is personal.  I was in the third grade in Anchorage, Alaska and a fifth grader called me “a little spic” or maybe it was “little wop”.  I wouldn’t have known what either meant, but I knew by the way he said it, it wasn’t good.  I reacted the only way I knew.  I jumped him.  This wasn’t really very smart for the next thing I knew he was on top of me rubbing my face in the snow telling me I had to say ”UNCLE”.  I took me about three tenths of a seconds to figure out that saying “uncle” quickly would prevent me from suffering a lot of pain and further indignation. Sidebar:  I leaned two important lessons.  You could both talk your...
A Trip Too Far

A Trip Too Far

by | Jan 22, 2012 | 0 comments

Our cruise on the Amazon in Peru from which we recently returned (see Los Ribiernos 12 Mar 2012) falls generally in the category of adventure/eco-travel.  There are many sub-categories as well, but suffice it to say that we tend to opt for the segment which is long on luxury and somewhat shorter on adventure with a nod to the ecological wonders of the world.  We’ve done Antarctica, and our only real adventure was when I had level five seasickness while we were navigating the Drake Passage, and our time on the Yangtze river was punctuated only by our choice of whether to have one or two cocktails before dinner.  We’ve done the safari thing in South...
Los Ribiernos

Los Ribiernos

by | Jan 21, 2012 | 0 comments

The Amazon, as we know it,  begins at the confluence of the Ucayali and Maranon Rivers in Loretto, Peru and proceeds east north east into Brazil and gathers strength as it is fed by numerous tributaries of the Amazon basin until it exits into an estuary on the Brazilian coast one hundred sixty miles wide.  At that point it is flowing three hundred thousand cubic meters per second into the Atlantic.  My grasp of flow rates is at low ebb, so to speak, but suffice it to say that the Amazon discharges more fresh water into the world’s oceans than the next seven rivers combined. Just a few other stats are in order if only to titillate your imagination.  As you...