English or Metric?

I live on my sailboat in the Caribbean. Now I am in Panama. I asked the local maintenance guy to change the zincs (sacrificial anodes) on my boat, a task for a diver. There are zincs on the end of the prop, the rudder support, the prop shaft and the bow thruster. The diver was […]

Nicknames

It was dusk. I was walking through Bocas town with Toni wearing short pants and a t-shirt, a ball cap, and my backpack with chancleta on my feet. Willie stopped his rusty old bicycle next to me and said, “Weed, Weed?” I find it a bit odd that he even asks me, a man in […]

I Hate the Yankees

Baseball rivalries and history have lots of lessons.

If a Picture is Worth 1000 Words…What Do You Do When You Need 100?

A sketch is a powerful way to get started on every technical project for a lot of reasons.

Last Night in Shanghai

David, Tobias and I finished a two-week d-TACTICS workshop in China yesterday. Together we took the subway and the maglev train to the airport. The train was fun. We reached 300kph while looking out the window at the cars stuck in traffic, blowing horns like the Chinese like to do. It took 7 minutes to get […]

Virginia Mary Allen August 18, 1920 – November 11, 2007

When Mom passed away on Sunday morning, one of the many kind nurses at the hospital said, “I am sorry for your loss.” I was sad, but in those very spiritual moments after Mom was just getting to heaven, I felt more at peace than sad. I also felt an over powering feeling of gratitude. […]

Now That I’ve Lost Everything to You

It was raining when I took the water taxi to town. My clothes were damp from the rain, but it wasn’t cold enough to be annoying. I walked through town and got even wetter, not caring, and found the things I needed; bananas, a plantain, fruits and vegetables, a piece of snapper, and a bottle […]

Four-Plus One Streams of Wealth: Stream 3 and 4

Four-Plus One Streams of Wealth: Stream 3 and 4, Create The Great Middle Class While Plus 1 Provides Little Benefit The British Empire can safely lay claim to be the source of the industrial revolution. It’s easy to trace the development of useful science from Italy where Galileo showed those who would listen that the earth was […]

Four-Plus One Streams of Wealth: The First Two Streams

This story is Part Two of Four. The first is Education, Training and the Middle Class Wealth Creation I propose that there are Four-Plus-One Streams of Wealth creation, all driven by work, which creates and distributes wealth. The rest is meta-work, which does not create wealth but rather takes it from those who create it. Meta-workers […]

Education, Training and the Middle Class

Americans don’t resent the wealthy, nor do people around the world. Most know they will never be rich. They don’t care. What they do expect is to have economic hope, a sense that they will be free from fear of economic insecurity. There is flexibility in defining hope and expectation, which are different around the […]