Author Archives: JJD
Boise – Life Aquatic
A new aquarium recently opened in Boise. It’s a relatively small affair, stuck in a random strip mall between a pawn shop and a party place. But it’s the only aquarium in town and had been getting a lot of attention among the younger-than-ten crowd. Since yesterday was a day off from school, Heather and I took the kids to check […]
Boise in the snow
Yesterday, after a great visit chez les parents, I flew up to Boise for Part II of this January vacation. Mark met me at the airport in his Jeep and gave me a ride to Heather’s house, where we had a fun afternoon playing with the kids (being the favorite uncle that I am, of course […]
Death Valley
Death Valley is the hottest, dryest and lowest spot in North America. It’s an extreme moonscape; a fantastic geological kaleidoscope of rock, salt flats and a handful of insane plants. It’s also only about 150 miles from Las Vegas, so on Monday morning we packed our lunches, filled our water bottles, donned our Lawrence of Arabia costumes, and […]
Las Vegas – The Strip
Paris has class but not much glitz. Las Vegas has no class and lots of glitz. It also has Paris. See it there, in the distance? Not being gamblers or strip-club enthusiasts, my family doesn’t really do Las Vegas the same way most people do. Through the swirling crowds of women in stilettos and men in aggressively un-tucked […]
Las Vegas – Hoover Dam
While everyone else was enjoying a year-end holiday over Christmas and New Year’s, I was working. But now, while everyone else is back at the grindstone, I’m on vacation! The major projects that had kept me so busy through the end of the year are now completed, and the few other projects that I still have are […]
Billy Elliot
Last night I saw the touring production of Billy Elliot the Musical at the Kennedy Center. For those who aren’t familiar with the musical (or the non-musical movie on which it is based), the show is set in a coal mining town in northern England in the mid-1980s, when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was is mortal […]
Contest Update
I bet you thought this day would never come! And, depending on what you thought “this day” would be, you might be right — I’m not announcing my engagement, peace in the Middle East, or the rescue of my favorite fountain pen from the Bank of America ATM at the corner of Van Ness and Connecticut. Sorry. But […]
Booked!
Buying airplane tickets is by far the most tedious stage of travel. In order to identify the perfect schedule/price combination, I inevitably end up with approximately eighty-seven web pages open at once — one for each schedule permutation — through which I then toggle anxiously back and forth to make sure that what appears to be the winning ticket is […]
The resurrection of Saint Katherine
If my shamrock were Juliet, then Romeo would be dead on my kitchen counter right now. Because look! She’s come back to life!! After a month of alarmingly quiet resting beneath barren dirt, the shamrock has sent up a slew of fresh stalks with delicate new leaves. Though still few in number, these new starts are vigorous and healthy — and I […]
Rockin’ — I mean, Workin’ New Year’s Eve!
I’m in the middle of negotiations for two big deals that have a deadline of midnight tonight. I’d like to say more about them, but they’ve been super contentious and highly publicized in the affected regions, so I need to be careful about client confidences. Suffice to say that these negotiations have been knock-down, drag-out affairs — complete with […]
A More Gentlemanlike Manner 