The Little Words Mean the Most

I went to war

Fueled, as most armies and generals are, with copious amounts of booze.

The new guideline: The best flower belongs to the house; it no longer stays in the garden.

New teaching idea

Jumping between PPTs teaching the SELF-AUDIT and PDFs of actual donor comms for class dissection. New teaching ideas move me with a strange and tingly strength, Laurabee read. Lightning crashed in the gumbo trees.

Designing the perfect carry-on bag

It would have to:

• Be soft enough to fold into uncomfortable spaces
• Have enough pockets for segregation of stuff (one big hole will not do)
• Boast outside pocket for at least one water bottle
• Include a "gum sack" for quick access
• Until I switch to an iPad, accommodate (and cushion) my laptop

And actually I have all that in my trusty, well-traveled Swiss Gear back pack. But it doesn't roll. And it's pretty heavy. So another requirement:

• Ability to levitate

The best garden tool in the armory

It's all done with this Yeoman combination hand hoe-and-fork.
The elongated handle is the secret. It provides the leverage of a tomahawk. Which gives you a great workout in the garden. Makes quick work of almost every chore: bedding plantlings, deleting tough weeds, doing fine adjustments between established growth. I gave away two of these as holiday gifts, I love it so much. 

Proposed a new merit badge for the BSA

Introduced in San Diego: the donor communications badge. Of course, it's not official yet. L-r: a room with a view; a sad departure for the pony company (the cabbie told me San Diego went 4 months without a convention this winter, killing tips and business; I gave him like a 50% tip and he exploded, "God bless, America!", meaning foreign visitors aren't always used to tipping, so they don't; whereas American tipping can be extravagant; I learned tipping policy from 2 sources: Steve Martin's character in My Blue Heaven ("I tip. In fact, I overtip.") and the investigative nonfiction, Nickel & Dimed: On [Not] Getting By in America); my speaking facility w/o and w/ Boy Scout fundraisers [rapidly toggle between the 2 to create a stop-motion movie]; dressed for excess in my English-made shirts (and tapestry ties from Pangborn Design), the reflection in the window showing the Tony Blair model with the broad blue stripes.... Click on any photo to enlarge and smell the roses.

Why you always travel w/ a camera

PT boat near-perfect camouflage. Near a client in CT....

New seasonal cocktail: The Cuketini

My farmer's market now has cukes. And what do you do with cukes? You liquor up. With Hendrick's gin, made at a devil-may-care single-malt distillery in Scotland, land of my grandmother's birth. Born to stones and exile not wealth alas. Click to enlarge photo.

On the weather front: Now there's something...

...called the "Maxi Tornado." As in this CNN headline: "'Maxi tornado' hits Oklahoma". And this super-sized weather event is killing lots of people. This is what weather is coming to: it defies definition.

On the style front...

...glad to read in today's news that super models sometimes have false teeth. That makes my new tooth implant less of a stranger.

Speaking in Italy at the FFR, the rest

L-r: that's the simultaneous translation booth in the back of my presentation room; Simone teaches among Art Deco grandeur; she acquires acolytes; the delightfully incomprehensible map that explained how each speaker related to all others. Click to sip the wine.