Hello! Back after a long time. This helps avoid email threads as you can comment below (if you're so inclined). There’s a great deal on my mind, especially the horror of Haiti. Today I saw film of the rubble of the hotel I used to stay in when I went to Haiti on business in the ‘80s. I hope and pray that this disaster will somehow have a ( Read more... )

Dear Friends and Family ( Read more... )

It’s been quite a few months since I checked in to this ‘space ( Read more... )

Miami is going wild. At least Calle Ocho is. All because for the first time since taking power 47 years ago, Fidel Castro has ceded his powers (temporarily of course) to his brother, Raúl. One expects the older folks to take to the streets, ecstatic at this news. Their lives were interrupted, some of them never to return to any semblance of ( Read more... )

We have long been a nation of contrarians. While we set the tone for much of what is current World pop culture and have propelled ‘globalism’ far beyond what the English, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch or even the Jesuits ever conceived, we remain relatively entrenched in our unwillingness to acknowledge sports fanaticism beyond our shores. This was ( Read more... )

I have always had vivid dreams. For some reason, the current chairman of the Federal Reserve cropped up in a recent one as a distortion of speech. Rather than an association to the economy, he turned up as music: Bernanke's Ladies (Bare Naked Ladies)......??????? What the hell is THAT about???

I am extremely interested in language. That may explain why I don’t write more often in my BLOB. I would like to write well but am seldom satisfied with my efforts. Yes, I love language and I speak two of them fluently. I find the evolution (or de-evolution) of both to be very interesting ( Read more... )

Oh woe is me! I should have checked previous BLOB entries before I went off on my spam-fest! I hate repeating myself. Oh woe is me! I should have checked, I mean if I had checked my previous BLOB entries, I would have seen that I had already shared with you my secret name fetish as well as my first list of Spammer names. I fear the old noggin ( Read more... )

My maternal Grandmother was a remarkable woman but like anyone else, she had some quirks. One of them was collecting names. We all knew about this name-collecting as well as her penchant for newspaper clipping. Grandma’s delight in the unusual crept up on us even after she’d departed this earth, as in among the various boxes and pieces of ( Read more... )

When I started this BLOB (an amorphous mass) nearly a year ago, it was to keep faraway friends and family apprised of my 'progress' in transitioning from Puerto Rico to Miami (aka the Southern Bermuda Triangle). Rather than fielding numerous 'replied to all' emails in a day, it seemed a good way for friends to be able to rib me and each other in ( Read more... )