Today as usual I bicycled to Bayfront Park. Actually I went further along Gulf of Mexico Drive to Block 5000 rather than stopping at Block 4000. At the time it seemed a manageable extension of my normal ride. But as I sit here now – not yet numbed by the handful of analgesics I took a moment ago – I can see that at my age the extra miles are work! On my way back I stopped on the beach for a swim. The weather, though continuing sunny over the next week, appears to be headed into the cooler December temperatures which will naturally affect the sea. I wanted to take advantage today of the cloudless sky and warm weather to swim in the sea before having to relent for a couple of weeks.

As a relic of the legal art
I’m still aroused by words.
And never to the point to say
That law is for the birds.

The reviews have been highly favourable. Other than those about the roll-out nightmares in August of this year at the start of the new model. But assuming it’s not all hype, Ford Motor Company appears to have addressed the problems and the associated bad press.

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I blame the grinding strength of my Starbuck’s Espresso Roast! I’ve replaced the late afternoon cocktail with chilled glass mugs of narcotic caffeine. Since one o’clock this morning I’ve been rattled. After a sleepless hour I relented and got out of bed. Immediately I sat at the computer and reviewed what has lately surfaced as the more fragile pieces I had written, some of them recently, others years ago. What promoted this spirited digestion was the ponderous awakening to both indiscretion and outright failure. It speaks to my personal limitation that these unanticipated realizations were slow to percolate. I am pleased however that they did. As is so often the case the undertaking proved to be one which I had hints of confronting for some time.

When I first arrived on Longboat Key about three years ago it captivated me as magically as Hilton Head Island. As with most things the subsequent familiarity has somewhat dampened the original gusto. Yet for the most part – aside from having accustomed myself to the patina of the sidewalks – it still holds an irrefutable strength quite beyond many other places.

The elves were having an awful time of it! The conveyor belt carrying the Teddy bears, model cars, train sets, smart phones, dolls, doll houses and wind-up toys had jammed no less than three times already this morning and it was only ten o’clock! Now it jammed again. This, of all things, at the busiest time of the year! There remained only days before Christmas Eve, even fewer because they couldn’t really count Christmas Eve itself. Everything had to be packed and onto Santa’s shiny crimson sleigh no later than noon on Christmas Eve if he were to make his worldwide rounds in time. To complicate matters further Santa had lately put on a bit of weight which was having the disadvantage of stealing precious moments in his descent down the chimneys (except of course those in which slick metal liners had been installed although they sometimes propelled Santa with near disastrous results).

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Do you take for philosophy this twaddle, this intolerable pettifoggery adorned with a few scholastic trimmings?

P.-J. Proudhan

Who among us hasn’t occasionally circulated by the stratagem of sharp practice or hair-splitting a distinction without a difference? The innuendo though frequently founded upon earnest pursuit is more often a mark of a trivial quarrel or squabble. Seldom does the skulduggery reach the height of malicious calculation. Where however the pettifoggery descends into corruption or deceit it is intolerable.

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Everyone’s talking about the weather!  It has been fabulous! For the past month we’ve had an unmitigated run of yellow sunshine, blue skies and warm temps!  It’s the summer we never had.  I believe next week we’re headed for stormy skies and lower temperatures but we’ve certainly had nothing to complain about lately.  Frankly I adore a lovely autumn day.  The air is clearer and drier than in the summer.  And if I can get away with wearing a light sweater that’s a plus too (which if you care to know is not strictly a fashion choice but rather a lamentable accommodation of my protuberant belly).

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Stand back, Columbus!  Settle down, John Glenn!  After weeks of failed attempts to log in to the back end of this web site I have at last discovered the key.  Which is hardly a secret since I only did what GoogleⓇ told me to do in the first place.  But I’m still taking some of the credit because as with any other fortuity the collision of time and place has proven once again to be essential to its evolution.  The truth be told, I only stumbled upon the way to do it. But isn’t that how so many of even the greatest discoveries unfold?

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As fortune would have it I am currently reading a very odd book recommended to me by an exceedingly erudite ancient friend who has a string of degrees after his name from some of the world’s renowned universities. While his professional occupation is that of a litigation lawyer he is exceptionally well-read and excels in matters literary of every description (as well as being a published author on some very narrow points of law). His literary curiosity is however vast. More than once he has steered me to scintillating manuscripts which, like the one I am reading now, go back a very long way.  The book at hand is Marcus Aurelius’ “The Meditations” translated by George Long.

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