We spent a morning during our recent visit to NYC at the 911 Memorial. The original estimated cost of the facility was about $1 trillion but was eventually cut to $500 million. Like the Vietnam memorial the reflecting pools with all the names are soberly impressive. The new towers themselves are nice but not nearly as big as the WTC was. Except for the ticketing area the museum is totally below ground and it is BIG. It takes several hours to just manage the path through it. I heard that it was designed by committee and since they couldn’t decide … Continue reading NYC – 911 Memorial….

Apple and IBM are teaming up to bring iPhones and iPads to business customers, the two companies said in a surprise announcement Tuesday. In a wide-ranging partnership, the two tech giants that were bitter rivals for decades will create a suite of apps and services aimed at enterprise clients…. “For the first time ever we’re putting IBM’s renowned big data analytics at iOS users’ fingertips, which opens up a large market opportunity for Apple,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement. “We are delighted to be teaming with Apple, whose innovations have transformed our lives in ways we take … Continue reading Bitter Rivals….

You want to be free. And as you start to feel that you are being corralled into a certain life, you kind of push against it. It may come out very strange, it may be interpreted wrong, but you’re trying to find out who you are.”….she lived with a deep fear of leading a “life half-lived.” “I realized that very young — that a life where you don’t live to your full potential, or you don’t experiment, or you’re afraid, or you hesitate, or there are things you know you should do but you just don’t get around to them, … Continue reading A Life Half Lived….

We’re okay with accepting Jesus as our Savior, but we’re not so sure we want to follow him as our Lord because that might make things a little uncomfortable for us. Perhaps like many things in life it may not be what we want, but it’s exactly what we need. What I find heartbreaking is when pastors, priests and ministers don’t want to talk to their congregations about what Jesus actually taught because it might offend people who have relatives in the military. They’re often afraid to say anything that will result in a decrease in attendance or offering and … Continue reading A One Sided Coin….

Central Park in New York City has a strangle hold on my wife. It is the primary reason for adding NYC to her bucket list and therefore our recent visit.  The first one here is one I snagged off the Internet, the rest are mine. The pictures were taken on a Sunday afternoon, perhaps the busiest time.   Continue reading NYC – Central Park…

Due to these blurred role expectations for adults and children, grown-ups have become a dying breed in America. According to writer and speaker Robert Bly, one-third of adult Americans are actually half-adults. “We have become a nation of squabbling siblings. We have abandoned our children to day-care centers and our elders to old folks homes, while we, like Peter Pan, simply ‘won’t grow up.’” Bly describes a culture in which Americans tolerate no one above them and show no concern for anyone below them. John Powers of the Boston Globe has also bemoaned the fact that there are a lot … Continue reading Yin/Yang and American Culture…. Parent /Child Relationship

I had to clip this from a post of a friend on Facebook. One of the duties I didn’t know a husband had before I got married almost three decades ago was waiting for your wife. Shopping is just one of those areas where waiting is called for. When I go to a store I usually have a list of what I want. I find those particular things and then am ready to check out. My wife has a different strategy. She can spend 20 minutes looking at purses even though she has no need for a new one and … Continue reading Waiting For Wife….

The U.S. spends the most of any country on its health care system, and yet it ranked the lowest out of 11 industrialized nations in overall healthcare quality, according to a report published Monday by the Commonwealth Fund.The report, which covered the years 2011-2013, compared more than 80 indicators of U.S. health care spending, quality and performance to the likes of Australia, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, and Sweden, among other developed nations. The UK, which was ranked highest, blew the U.S. out of the water, despite the fact that the country spends less than half as … Continue reading US continues its losing streak in health care quality comparison