All posts tagged: Random DJB Thoughts

A full life

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My father-in-law, Dr. Andrew Colando, passed away last evening.  All members of his immediate family were with him on the day he died, and he went peacefully after a short illness. His obituary details the key milestones of his life:  a proud graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine; a founding board member of the American Association of Equine Practitioners; a 71-year association with the horse racing business as veterinarian, breeder, trainer, and owner.  He began racing trotters at Yonkers Raceway on the weekends while still in high school and trained Uncle Miltie among other horses in his father’s stable before beginning his equine veterinary practice. I first met Dr. Colando after he retired from his practice and had returned to the training he loved with his own stable of horses.  Being the first in-law in a New Jersey Italian-Irish family was full of new experiences for a Southern-bred fellow.   I didn’t have the years of experience with family banter that made the dinner table discussions so exciting.  The closest I’d been …

Hope for Passenger Trains?

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I love riding trains.  On my business trips between Washington and New York, the train is always my preferred mode of transportation.   So I’m glad to see the pundits like Neal Peirce commenting on the train ride that Obama and Biden are taking to Washington for the Inauguration as a positive metaphor for passenger rail. Rail enthusiasts, for decades spurned by presidents of both parties, were elated by the news that Barack Obama will travel to Washington for his inauguration by train from Philadelphia. “The symbolism is magnificent and the message very positive for all of us who for so many years have labored to create a more balanced American transportation system,” said James RePass, president-founder of the National Corridors Initiative that’s pressed since 1989 for upgraded rail passenger service in America. Rail service is wonderful.  Compared to air travel, getting on a train is about a simple as stepping in  your car.  On a train you can plug in a laptop and work uninterrupted and with sufficient space.   From the first second to the …

16 Wonderful Years

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Time passes too quickly.  Sixteen years ago our twins were born and life in our family changed forever.  I have been enriched by their beauty, inquisitiveness, talent, laughter, tears, art, openness, and love.  Having just spent yesterday afternoon with the two of them, I was reminded of why the last 16 years have been such a joy.  I posted three of my favorite pictures from when they were young. But the day was also a reminder of why we strive to live in the moment.  Long-time friends spent the weekend with us.  We shared stories, jokes, and laughter and made new memories.  We talked about the upcoming birth of their first grandchild.  But as they were leaving, they received news of the death of a dear friend.  At about the same time, an email from work told me that a colleague’s sister had taken a turn for the worse and was very ill.  We also had a lovely visit with a classmate of Andrew and Claire’s who stopped by with her Mom to surprise the twins with 16th …

For Mom, on what would have been her 78th birthday

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Mother was born on December 9, 1930.  Today would have been her 78th birthday, had cancer not claimed her on New Year’s Day 1998.  For the past ten years there’s seldom a day that passes without something happening that reminds me of her.  She was a remarkable woman with a large circle of friends and an even larger capacity for love and service. After I graduated from college and left home, Mother and I maintained a weekly correspondence for many years.  She was a “newsy” letter writer, with information about the family mixed in with items from town, updates on old friends, tidbits about both our careers, and extensive sports news.  (Mother was my loyal co-spectator for games on television.) Several years after she died, I published a collection of her letters from 1980 – 1997 entitled Rich in Love.  Over the course of those 17 years she wrote about love, death, babies, pets, advice, and family.  Her letters included a four-page typewritten description of our wedding she prepared for family members who couldn’t attend.  She wrote one of …

Slow Blogging

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The Sunday New York Times included a story on “Slow Blogging.”  I had never heard of the term (although I am aware of the slow food movement), but I found myself agreeing with the rejection of immediacy, the thought of blogging as meditation, and the precept that not all things worth reading are written quickly.  This approach is a deliberate smack at the popular group blogs like Huffington Post, the Daily Beast, Valleywag and boing-bong, which can crank out as many as 50 items a day.  On those sites, readers flood in and advertisers sign on.  Spin and snark abound.  Earnest descriptions of the first frost of the season are nowhere to be found. In between the slow bloggers and the rapid-fire ones, there is a vast middle, hundreds of thousands of writers who are not trying to attract advertising or buzz but do want to reach like-minded colleagues and friends.  These people have been the bedrock of the genre since its start, yet recently there has been a sea change in their output:  They are increasingly …

Searching the Internet and Finding…The Edge of the American West

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In yet another of my posts on very interesting web sites found while searching the Internet, I bring you today The Edge of the American West.  This is a site that contains writings by historians and philosophers, leading the site to suggest that “History is Philosophy teaching by examples. ” The interests of these men and women run the gamut, if recent posts are any example.  They do a regular This Day in History type of post, one of the most recent being about the day that Richard Nixon declared he wasn’t a crook.  To give  you a sense of the politics here, the post is entitled “Yes You Are.  And Also a Liar.”   There are posts on camel metaphors (having to do with choosing cabinet members), and the day in 1972 when the Dow Jones Industrial Average first closed above 1,000.  (We may be headed back there!) But I knew this was a website worth checking when I read Aw, that could have been MY head.  Here the writer tells the story of how he …

The Lincoln Memorial

A case of the slows

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With two sophomores in Pre-Calculus, Spanish, Honors Chemistry, and the like, there’s not much I can do to help with homework these days.  So when Claire asked me to come over to her chair tonight to look over a review sheet, I went with some trepidation.  She must have seen my fear, so she added, “It is for history.” Whew.  That I can handle. Her note sheet had some smudges, obscuring some of the answers.  So she asked “Why did President Lincoln fire McClellan?”  “The first or second time?”  My response surprised her, but she re-read the question and realized it was referring to the second time.  So I said, “because he refused to attack Lee’s retreating army after Antietam.”  She looked at her sheet, figured out the missing words around the smudge, and decided I was right.  One for the old man. “How did President Lincoln describe General McClellan?” Claire asked.  “That’s easy,” I replied, “Lincoln said McClellan, ‘had a bad case of the slows.’”   Now I had her!  “How did you know that?!” she exclaimed.  I …

Fired Up and Ready to Go

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A friend recently pointed me to a blog posting entitled In Defense of Raising Money:  A Manifesto for NonProfit CEOs written by a man by the name of Sasha Dichter.  Now you may think that sounds like a very boring topic, but if you care about any cause – be it eradicating poverty, health care reform, the arts, AIDS, historic preservation, you name it – read this manifesto.  It is a powerful piece that talks about how your dream and passion has to be bigger than your ego.  Just a sampling… Spending your time talking to powerful, influential people about the change you hope to see in the world is a pretty far cry from having fundraising as a “necessary evil.”  Do you really believe that the “real work” is JUST the “programs” you operate?  (the school you run; the meals you serve; the vaccines you develop; the patients you treat?)   Do you really believe that it ends there?  Do you really believe that in today’s world, where change can come from anyone and anywhere, that convincing people …

Watching the U.S. Election from Vienna

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As noted earlier in the week on More to Come…, I spent election night on a plane over the Atlantic.  So I was so happy to see the video below.  No matter  your political persuasion, the historic nature of last Tuesday’s decision by the American people has to touch you.  Sitting here in the lobby of a hotel in Austria, I got emotional watching this 10 minute video summary of election night and wanted to share it with you. More to come… DJB