Tim's Reflection Connection

Story One I indicated on Twitter yesterday that I’m in Pensacola, Florida, for a few days. I’m visiting my mother. Today I noticed the flag at my hotel is at half mast. I asked the front desk why. He told me about the President’s national honoring of Neil Armstrong, a truly great American. I replied, [...]

Unexpectedly, my cousin sent me this picture of my mother holding me as a baby. As you can see, I started life out as an adorable little tyke, all bubbles and smiles.

Regrettably, I missed a gorgeous sunset tonight.  By the time I got to the ocean after dinner, this was all that was left.  I shot it with my iPhone; so, well, it’s lacking. This was a sunrise from my recent trip to Florida.The Gulf of Mexico is just gorgeous!  Again, I shot it with my iPhone. [...]

Well, yesterday I went over 1,000,000 miles on Delta alone. I travel way too much! Most recently, I spent a week at Pensacola Beach visiting mother and looking at property. I noticed crews working on the beach, and then it hit me:   They are cleaning up buried oil from the Gulf oil spill. I [...]

Nostalgia.  The good old days.  The old ways.  Back in the day. We tend to remember the past all packaged up as warm and glowing.  This morning, for no discernible reason at all, I had a flash back memory from my childhood.  I was a young child visiting my great Aunt Hester€”my mother‘s mother’s sister. [...]

When the lights dimmed, she looked at me from across the room.  When I approached her, a single spotlight from heaven filled our hearts.  We were in love.  The Oar House, Pensacola, FL.

Amazingly, people were swimming in the Gulf before, during, and probably after this storm.  But maybe, it was ok.  I never went down to the water.  If any oil or dispersant were around, it wasn’t visible from the hotel room balcony.  Sunday night, the last night of the visit, a big thunderstorm came from the [...]

We just returned from a very short visit to my hometown of Pensacola.  My FC, favorite cousin, Susan, came down for the visit as well.  We had a wonderful time filled with laughter, good seafood, and great political talk (the FC and I are on the same side of the political coin).  I don’t know, [...]

If this TED talk by toxicologist Susan Shaw isn’t depressing and a powerful call to arms, then nothing is. She begins by mentioning the chemical industry, which is all but completely unregulated, and how many chemicals can be found in our bodies.  In Europe, the numbers are vastly, vastly lower.  The worst offender:  flame retardant. [...]

I had no idea that the grandson of the renowned late Jacque Cousteau lives just a few miles up the road in Santa Monica, California. As a child I loved watching his grandfather’s expeditions. This interview is so depressing. I could cut my leg off, I could cut my arm off, I could gouge my [...]

The carefully placed shine on the top of his head is brilliant marketing! Godlike. Saintly. Trust me.   I am your savior. The LCD TV screen instead of a poster spends your BP dollar well while making the white on the graph look as white as possible — much brighter than a poster board would [...]

You know, I think democracy is just much too expensive: all of those expensive campaigns and elections, the cost of congress, the presidency, the supreme court. And then running all of those state governments. It’s simply not cost effective. I suggest we combine state and nation government into one and just have all the CEO’s [...]

  “I don’t think I’m overstating the case by saying this is America’s Chernobyl.” —Louie Miller, Mississippi state director, Sierra Club, at a news conference on May 1, 2010, in Gulfport, Mississippi. Not overstating it?  Indeed! But, unless you live on the Gulf Coast, as does my extended family, unless you know people who will [...]

I look forward to spending some time with mom, working on the genealogy project, resting and relaxing at the beach, eating good seafood, and enjoying my favorite breakfast spot–The Coffee Cup, on Cervantes Street near downtown.  I would give you the url, but this is an old family business that’s been in town for generations….  Eating breakfast at The Coffee Cup made number 18 on the 101 things you have to do in Pensacola.

The women would sit in the living room which would be full of simultaneous conversations and screams of laughter, while the men sat shoulder to shoulder in aluminum-framed, nylon-banded folding chairs out on the very small front porch….  Except for the time when the men got all excited about the snake that innocently wandered up on the porch and promptly met its maker, the men tended to talk in a monotonous “unitone” without any real excitement beyond the frequent pepperings of “yeah,” “um hum,” and “that’s right”s that permeated the amiable conversations– few and short though they were….  I recall standing at the edge of the backyard, where the deep dark woods began, just beyond the beams from the flood light at the back of the house, wondering what dangerous beasts lurked just beyond in the darkness of the forrest, peering back at me without my even knowing.