Siftings
Sep
07
Worst of Times
Lu Fareed is a PhD candidate conducting research into local government leadership, using the Covid pandemic as a case study. He interviewed me for his research. The transcription of the interview follows (thank you, everyone at Seaside):
Crisis Leadership Interview...
Apr
03
Totems
Ooo, let’s go up there! Amanda has seen the condors in the distance, soaring over the bluffs in Pinnacles National Park, and she wants a closer look. So, up we go. A girl – no, young woman – after my own heart.
Been more than a year since I’ve seen Amanda, Colin or Marcia. Hundreds of...
Feb
16
The Crying Scene
In the movie, it would start raining. In life, it did. Stay at home order lifted and a four-day weekend means four thousand miles is doable. No less an authority on cars that Mr. Clarkson himself declared the world’s fastest car is a rental (extreme example here), so there I am standing at the...
Jan
01
Do-overs
Been a year. One whole ride around the sun. Three hundred and sixty-five dawns and, after that blinding yellow orb sinks into the Pacific just down the street, just as many sunsets. There were twenty-five rodeos round the hydrogen gas bag before I met her, but that was just fate taking enough...
Dec
26
21 From 2020
The year wasn’t great, but there were some great tunes along the way. Here’s some that were mostly new in 2020, but all pertain to it somehow.
21. American Aquarium – Me + Mine
2020 - one long lamentation.
20. Sturgill Simpson – Ronin, Remember To Breath, Sing Along, A Good Look, Make...
Nov
21
Red
Was it a throwaway line? Or was it insight? Interviewing a collection of fire chief candidates, all of them tell stories of service, dedication and preparation for the position. Which is how it goes at the fire chief level. You don’t get to the interview phase of the contest without decades of...
Oct
25
Endings
Update: If your pitcher has shut down the strongest hitting team in the league through six innings, you let him keep going if someone reaches first base.
There’s your October surprise. The Los Angeles Dodgers, with their $107 million payroll, lose Game 4 of the World Series to the 189th best...
Sep
11
Shedding Layers
In the office before the sun touches the Pacific. The State has two questions about the homeless grant and I want the answers - good answers - to be the first thing they see in the morning. Not to read too much into the questions but, if those are their only remaining questions, there might be...
Aug
23
System of an Up
Near midnight, arrive in the One-ga-low kitchen from City Hall after a Council meeting. Though many thought it impossible, the Zoom meetings have made them longer. Gonna have a cookie. Flip on the light and my current nemesis scatter from the countertop. Ants, so make that nemesi. I have a...
Jul
19
Pretty In Silver
"A John Hughes Film" scrolling through the credits of a 1980s movie was soothing to the soul. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Breakfast Club, Pretty In Pink and a dozen more, scrolling by, telling some Capraesque tale of longing and redemption, but with vibrant colors and slick soundtracks. The decade...
