News and Views

Apollo peacefully left us this morning. After 11 years of joy and companionship he passed away in the veterinary’s office. He was lucky to be adopted into our family, and especially to have Derek as his “father”. Derek took as good care of him as anyone could have, spending more than a little time and […]

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I was lying in bed a couple of nights ago when a thunderstorm came through. I heard the far-off rumbles of thunder, lasting a few seconds each, until one lightning bolt struck within a few hundred feet with a huge boom! The loud rumble went on and on, at least 10 seconds before it quickly […]

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Everything is starting to run together. Lots of medieval towns, castles, cathedrals. Each is interesting in its own way, but I can’t really show that here in any way that anyone would care about. Even passing through locks is getting to be old hat. We must have done at least 5 just this afternoon. I […]

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We’ve done ocean cruises before, and even a couple of river cruises, but this is our first Viking river cruise. Here are come comments. There are only 190 passengers on this ship, compared to 3000 – 5000 or more on the big ocean cruise ships. That makes a big difference, and depending on your taste […]

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After Budapest, the next stop was Vienna, Austria. Vienna is the capital and largest city in Austria, with about 1/4 of the country’s population. We opted for the walking tour “Vienna Close Up” rather than the included bus tour. We rode the subway into central Vienna and then spent about 3 hours walking around with […]

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Ten hours from Phoenix to London on British Airways, then two and a half hours to Budapest. We arrived about 6:30 in the evening, but it was around 8:00 before we made it to the ship and settled into our room. The next day we took a tour of the city, which is really two […]

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Gisele and I traveled to Idaho where we met Dale and Donna. We rented a cabin and they camped nearby in their Minnie-Winnies. Although we were both already inside the path of totality, we were a little far from the center line, so on Monday morning we drove a few miles south. This increased the […]

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I experimented with a new car rental company on our trip to San Francisco last week. Silvercar rents only Audi A4s, and the only color is (of course!) silver. This is a nicer car than you will usually get at a rental company. You can pay more for a “luxury” car, but you won’t be […]

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All… er… Both. Both of us. Gisele and me both! A little over a year ago I went on Medicare and wrote a post about it. It’s now Gisele’s turn. For the past 6 months we have been paying nearly $900 per month for her coverage, which has a deductible of $6000. (On the plus, […]

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Actually, I’m a day late — “Loving Day” was yesterday, June 12. It was the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in the case of “Loving vs. Virginia” that ruled inter-racial marriages legal in all states. If Gisele and I had come back to Arizona from Taiwan before 1962, our marriage would have been […]

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