Author: vicSocotra

Saint Patrick Celebrates: The Freedom of Our Seas

Saint Patrick Celebrates: The Freedom of Our Seas

Today featured a visit for the ages! It was one that evoked the spirit of Saint Patrick’s Days spent with comrades in distant places with a sense of solidarity and will. It is hard to compare unless you have shared some over the 47 years since I first saw Bronco in his crisp green Nomex […]

Arrias and His Muse: Comes the Spring

A silver Moon in a lapis sky, Perhaps a hint of frost, But tree frogs chirp to greet the dawn, And winter’s hard edge seems lost. Small buds seem to fill all the trees, Though the grass is still brown and dead, And no daffodils or day Lillies yet, But all the trees are tipped […]

Around the block on Clock Change Sunday

Around the block on Clock Change Sunday

It is a Sunday here at the Woodbine Rehab facility in Alexandria, so only the regular staff is doing their basic maintenance for the seniors and disabled crowd held here. No Physical or Occupational Therapists in evidence so a sort of industrial calm is present on this floor with no loudspeaker announcements to break the […]

Monday? Monday!

Monday? Monday!

This morning had an adjunct to what passes for Holy Services here on the Potomac, where we have a couple of the former seniors who attend services at the cathedral next door overlooking the passage across the Potomac and into the Capitol of the Republic most of is served. There is also a tradition at […]

Arrias & His Muse: Swamp Sunrise

Thank God Arrias answered the bell this morning- he captured the moments before Splash slid the tablet across the conference table. Displayed was a large format of Vic’s upper leg with some impressive new deep incisions. DeMille rejected it, of course, but in this week in this town the display had a certain resonance with […]

FMC: External Revenue

FMC: External Revenue

We were committed to watching the confirmation hearing to get a sense of who will be running things. Some of the Boomers laughed, since they content we don’t know who has been doing that for years. So things might get a little clearer with the daily list of give-aways to unlikely folks who may also […]

8 Tips for Smart Investing and Grilling

You know what is coming as well as I do, so I won’t belabor the point. Maybe it is a recovery and maybe it ain’t. Remember, this is mostly a psychological drill, at least for Wall Street. If you feel good, you act good. I am as tired of the continuing crisis as I am […]

Happy Days

I am about ready for a dose of irrational exuberance, al la the quote from the evil gnome Alan Greenspan about the housing bubble years ago. I wish I could find a gig like that- utter a sphinxlike line in the morning, and then take off for a long lunch and a longer weekend. Alan […]

Burying George

It was one of those mornings; no reason for traffic to be horrific, but it was, anyway. Pulling out of the garage under Big Pink I spied the traffic backed up on Route 50 East in front of the building. Since it is almost a mile to the first of the two lights that slow […]

Slouching Toward Bethlehem

02 March 2011 (Irish Poet William Butler Yeats.) Slouching Toward Bethlehem Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all […]