Heading into an all-nighter. You've got to love them. This one's the fourth of my career although I have had a few that have come awfully close (4 or 5 am). Not bad actually for six years of practice. My last was 37 hours. I'm hoping that record goes unchallenged tonight as I've still got the rest of the week to get through. At least the 37 ( Read more... )

Invariably, if you are walking ten miles a day, you do a lot of thinking ( Read more... )

I have taken to walking long distances (between 5 and 10 miles at a time) on the weekends these days. The Lake is just too much of a draw and I am finally getting a chance to explore Chicago on a very random basis - just veering off and wandering along new streets, through new neighbourhoods ( Read more... )

It's when I have days like this that I wonder if I can continue in this line of work for another 25 years ( Read more... )

I was in Austin, Texas this weekend on what I dubbed my "LBJ" weekend - visits to the LBJ birthplace, LBJ's ranch in the gorgeous Texas Hill Country and then a visit to the LBJ Library and Museum on the University of Texas campus. Since reading the first three volumes of the Caro biography of LBJ (in my view, some of the greatest political ( Read more... )

Sitting here in the office listening to the dulcet tones of James Naughtie providing the election results for the UK. It's much nicer not staying up through the night to hear them ( Read more... )

Have spent the better part of today playing with my new toy - my iPod. I have yet to give any serious thought to which CDs to put on it and have just been grabbing things randomly to load on there. For some reason, one of the first CDs I grabbed was my recording of the music from "The Godfather" trilogy ( Read more... )

Last night, while in a bar here in town, I overheard the following ( Read more... )

Just landed back in the Windy City from a trip round the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina / Tennessee. Not one of my finest excursions - I was too busy this week to do any planning whatsoever, my flight out of O'Hare was delayed three hours which seriously cut into traveling time yesterday, the weather was appalling (snow) resulting in some ( Read more... )

It seems as if anyone who has read "The Da Vinci Code", be they Catholic or not (and, by my guessing they are more likely not to be) now considers himself or herself an expert on the Church and on the election of the new Pope. A few thoughts ( Read more... )