Travels With Ringo

Just a quick update I spent the better part of the last six months looking for apartments in western europe with focus on the Netherlands, France and Spain. I have also been researching the logistics of buying a car in these countries. Meanwhile our lease in the Jersey City apartment came to an end and…

This has been a difficult year for most of us. Alice and I have come through relatively unscathed only having to suffer the boredom of being sequestered in an small but comfortable apartment in Jersey City. But that time is nearing an end. The lease on our apartment is running out at the end of…

This is not a post, Well it is a post but not meant to be a post. I have to apologize to that one person who is expecting my newsletter but it never comes. I’ve actually written several posts, about sourdough baking, but have not published them because everytime I write one I discover new…

The Science of the Art of Bread Baking It’s not about eating bread. It’s not even about eating better bread. It’s about learning. It’s about keeping the brain active. Such activity does not require mastering quantum physics or a foreign language. Mastering apparently simple tasks such as bread making will do. Partially because the rewards…

Those who know me know that I am generally an optimistic person. Optimistic because problems could be solved, for the most part. If they can’t be solved then they could be dealt with by adaptation. Problems present challenges that make life interesting. That has been true for many of the major obstacles in my life…

We have been in the USA a bit over two weeks most of that time spent in isolation incase we brought corona with us. Since we were in isolation for several weeks in Italy before coming to New Jersey, it was unlikely that we were infected. However the trip itself was a potential infector so…

Everyone is going through tough times these days. Life’s routines have been disrupted, perhaps for good. Perhaps we are entering a new normal that is vastly different than the old. But to add to that I am going through a difficult separation. I’m not yet sure if it will end in divorce but it is…

Last Monday, the day before the Tuesday I was supposed to get the Italian plates for my car, the agency called and said that the “engineer” who was working on my case called in sick. “Maybe he will back tomorrow”. Given the relentless march of Covid-19, I was sure he either had contracted it or…

We really don’t want to, not really. Although people are dropping dead up north of here and will soon be doing so here and everywhere else in Italy, that is just because Italy is the most popular place for tourism. So it hit here hard before any other place outside of Asia. But when you…

The cosmos are conspiring to change the certainty of the course of our circumstances. Since retiring Alice and Ringo and I have been on a slow trek through Italy and Europe. We are currently in the Chianti section of Tuscany living in part of a 500 year old, Renaissance era villa. The villa is surrounded…