Secretary of Energy Dr. Steven Chu. Official US government photo. I want to thank those who actually noticed that The Daily Socotra took a brief hiatus.   It was actually nothing of the sort, and our team swept out of the home offices in Arlington to go undercover to evaluate public policy and support […]

  It was getting to that point in the evening that I wanted to think about navigating back to Big Pink from Willow. Mac was nursing his second beer, happy to be out and about and encircled by admirers. Liz-with-an-S kept filling up my glass.   “Who is in charge of ONI now?” asked the […]

Short Hair Mike is a romantic, which is a refreshing quality in an Army Ranger. Pretty Jamie showed up a little before him at the Willow, and checked her phone for network time. “Is he late for the date?” I asked. “According to my phone, he is.” She looked up as The Lovely Bea entered […]

Mac was a little late getting to Willow- but there was a reason. He was getting suited up for a portrait. He drove over from The Madison and parked his champagne Jag in the garage under the restaurant, and arrived just about the same time as I did, shortly after five. John-with-an-H and Old Jim […]

    (Rousing picture of imaginary Sea-Air-Land Commando team. Image staged by Nerdpride aka Crazy children.)   I am a huge fan of Navy SEALs. The above picture is one that you might have seen in the outpouring of adulation over the raid that killed that scumbag bin Laden in Abbottabad, and the other astonishing […]

I’ll be jiggered. The new computer demands I enter a “product code” to use the copy of MicroSoft Word for Mac I have owned for years. I forgot the adapter for the camera, and can’t get access to the dozens of shots of the property I looked at yesterday. I am down on the farm. […]

  Sorry- little slow out of the gates this morning. The Big Dining In was last night over at the Fort Myer Officer’s Club. The grand tradition had come down a little in the world since they began. I went to the cupboard to see when the last one was held- the latest wineglass I […]

There is a hysterical take-off on Clint Eastwood’s Chrysler-commercial from the Superbowl going around. Clint was apparently surprised by the reaction to his spot about the come-back of the auto industry. Apparently they shot it in New Orleans, with the Crescent City standing in for the Motor City for reasons best known to the makers. […]

There is an old tradition in the seafaring world of rounding out your roster of able-bodied seamen by slipping them Mickies or knocking them over the head. The sailors would rise in aching confusion in the morning with the ship underway and no escape possible. The Royal Navy would do the same thing at sea- […]

(Katia, the almost former Willow bartender. Photo Socotra.) The office was quiet, with the exception of that Maxim the Russian who is desperate to build his business and who came to talk to me with his eerie pale blue eyes. He looked a little like Vladimir Putin, and I told him I missed the old […]