I began writing as a creative way to think out loud.  I’m one of those people that has never felt compelled to write, but I enjoy the cathartic benefits of putting my fingers on the keyboard.  As a newly single, 49 year-old man,  I am using this blog to chronical my journey, my discoveries, and observations. 

I am born and bred New England, lived here all my life. I currently live in southern Maine.

My Passions: traveling, anywhere. Here in America, I’ve traveled to New York City,  Dallas,  Chicago,  Las Vegas, Arizona and the Grand Canyon.  Elsewhere, I traveled to London, Scotland (Edinburgh and St. Andrews), Paris, Amersterdam, Bonn, and Frankfurt Germany.  I enjoy faking my way around the kitchen,  smoking some good barbeque, and I’m always eager to sit and enjoy a good book.  I love to play golf, but don’t play ofen enough.  I have been fortunate to be able to playtee it up in St. Andrews.

I find great joy in mychildren.  My Daughter is 20 and My Son is 16 They are my pride and joy.  I am blessed to have them as a part of my life.  When they are not around,  I look forward to the times we are together.

My likes: I really do enjoy long  walks on the beach…it’s no cliche’…walking by the ocean reconnects you with the essence of  all life.  Plus, I love breathe in the ocean air.   I can see the mountains AND the ocean from 12 stories up at my workplace, and feel blessed to have those views when I need them.  

 I love to get in the car and just drive.  I love playing golf at dusk when I have the course to myself.  I like to blow bubbles.  I like walking the streets and observing the human condition.  I like to walk, anywhere and everywhere.

My Powerball fantasy:  to pull up stakes and buy a crofter’s cottage in Scotland.  I want to get away from the American ratrace and find a slower, more civilized way of life.  Anywhere I can play links golf can’t be all bad. “Any world that I’m welcome to/Is better than the one I come from” – Steely Dan

My philosphy in two parts:  You can never have too many books or own too much music, and ….”and it’s only the giving that makes you what you are”–Ian Anderson 

MUSIC: To quote a line from the movie, Almost Famous,  “what is it you love about music?  …..to start, everything”.  I sang in choral groups and choirs when I was in high school.   I spent 13 years working as a radio disc jockey, starting in college ( I guess that’s why my hearing is starting to go from having the headphones cranked up too loud).   I’ve been exposed to alot of different styles over the years, so there’s not much I don’t like for music.  My CD collection may be small, but it covers a WIDE spectrum.  I enjoy bands like the Police, the Beatles; some jazz, Brazilian and bossa nova of Tom Jobim and Sergio Mendes & Brasil ‘66; Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Steely Dan, singer/songwriters James Taylor, Joni Mitchell and Duncan Sheik; 70s soul and disco, especially anything produced by Gamble and Huff, horn bands like Earth, Wind and Fire, Tower of Power, and lots of odds and ends culled from iTunes.  I like listening to UK stations on the internet.  Among my favorites are two stations in the UK.  One  station from Bristol, England..Original 106.5..a wonderful mix of different styles (www.originalbristol.co.uk). The other is its Scottish sister, Original 106 in Aberdeen, Scotland.  You can access both from www.radiofeeds.co.uk   I have also discovered Free Form BCN (www.wbcn.com), which is an online free-form station based on the original WBCN in Boston.  It’s fun to hear the mixure of genres, some completely unexpected.  My local  favorite is WCLZ-FM… the music is great (www.989wclz.com), although since being bought out by a large media conglomerate, they’ve fired all the interesting DJs and replaced them with drones.  But I still enjoy the music.   I love to talk about music, musicians and bands. I’m open to all points of view, but NO HEAVY METAL.

BOOKS:   “The Drifters” by James Michener.  It should be required reading for any young person who has no idea what to do with their life, within the context of the 1968 Democatic Convention and the social upheavals caused by the Vietnam War;  “White Bicycles: Making Music in the ’60’s” by Joe Boyd.  If you want an English perspective on the Summer of Love, this is your book;   ”Forever” and “Snows in August” by Pete Hamil, a former New York beat writer who is in love with his town, and it shows in his writing.  Both of these books are interesting takes on life in a bygone New York City, stuff that gets lost in the puff-chested rhetoric that comes out of NYC;  “Two Years in St. Andrews” by George Peper.  It’s about buying a flat in St. Andrews, pulling up stakes and moving to Scotland.   

MOVIES:  This section is always evolving,  but here are the defintes:

The Sting, Local Hero, Dirty Rotten Scouldrels, M*A*S*H,  Ocean’s Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen; Oh, Brother Where Art Thou, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Four Weddings and A Funeral, and The Italian Job (the original with Michael Caine and Benny Hill).