Hole In The Donut Travels

We’ve had an absolutely delightful week of sunshine, crystal blue skies and temperatures in the upper 70’s, but today the temps dropped and by dusk a fog bank blanketed downtown Sarasota, making for some ethereal scenes. I thought I’d share just a few photos:

Those of you who have been faithfully reading my blog know that I am enamored with Sarasota’s commitment to culture and the arts. But this morning I saw another side of Sarasota – its passion for sports. I have always known that Florida (along with Arizona, where I also lived for 11 years) is the [...]

You just never know when you’re going to be entertained. Today it was at a downtown coffee and pastry shop, where I stopped for a late afternoon snack. I had just settled down with my Vente Cappuccino when three cops walked in for their mid-afternoon coffee break. They were still standing at the counter [...]

On occasion I have written about things that I consider indicative of the “Failing of America” – usually companies that have lost touch with their customers’ needs and desires or have forgotten what customer service is about. In these cases there is usually a lot of finger pointing going on – blaming someone/something else [...]

A friend from my previous life in real estate, Bill Holt, sent me an email the other day that contained a series of old black & white photos. Apparently, these photos were discovered on the film from a Brownie camera found stored in an old footlocker belonging to a sailor who was serving on [...]

I smile a lot these days. I wake up each morning with a smile on my face. I can’t wait to discover what the day has in store for me. As I go through the day I smile at everyone I meet and I find it’s infectious – even people who are [...]

The other day I received an e-newsletter from my loan officer down in Key West, Ruben Concepcion. One of the articles dealt with the IRS’s recent decision to stop collecting the Federal Excise Tax on long distance phone service. Taxpayers will be eligible to file for refunds of all excise tax paid [...]

This past Saturday evening I attended my first opera – Madame Butterfly. My house-mate, Sascha, is a bass player in the opera so he was able to get me a $5 house ticket. It was definitely in the nosebleed section – the very last row in the upper balcony – but the acoustics were great [...]

I was on the phone with Dad until midnight last night – he was trying to go to the links on my recent blog entry about the Honda car commercial and the fantastic machine, but he didn’t have the flash player he needed, so I walked him through it. We finally figured it out (hard [...]

When I lived on the Outer Banks I was fortunate to have a house located on 12.5 acres, surrounded by Nature Conservancy land, so it was not uncommon to be visited by critters of all kinds (read about them here). I had deer, fox, snakes, HUGE snapping turtles, nutria, giant Osprey, big ‘ol green warty [...]