This is my public declaration, so I don’t back out (unless I quietly delete this later), that I have run the numbers and formulated a plan to retire at 50. OK, it’s more accurate to say that I can retire at 50, just as soon as I complete an admittedly…

Exciting news, to be sure. New CDC guidelines have been announced, greatly relaxing mask and social distancing rules for vaccinated people. There are, however, many important exceptions. CAVEATS: To my knowledge, the information about the new CDC guidelines (and the existing ones) contained in this post was accurate as of…

Since its release in late-2016, it’s become a welcome tradition that I do an in-bookstore reading from Backpacking with Dracula each year around Halloween. That’s not happening this year, due to the U.S. transforming into a belligerent, failed, plague state, so I decided to do a reading via my very…

I decided it was time to start writing humor again and applying for The Onion’s 2020/2021 fellowship seemed the perfect jump-start. Spoiler alert: It was.

How did a 50-year-old get addicted to Fortnite? I made it eight weeks into this never-ending, pandemic self-isolation hell before I had to find something, anything, to distract me from social media and whatever awful thing “President” Little Finger had done lately. Did I learn a new language? No. On…

Travel writing is dead – long live travel writing I recently turned 50 years old. That’s right, I made it. Now that I’ve reached AARP eligibility, I feel I’ve earned the gravitas to espouse the old adage, exclusively disseminated by old people, that with age comes a practical wisdom that…

Hi all, This is possibly the first of many addendums for my “Coronavirus tourism survival and recovery” post from back in April. I encourage you to read or re-familiarize yourself with the original piece as well, since few if any other people appear to be writing or talking frankly about…

I slept far better than I thought I would last night. That’s about the beginning and the end of the good news. I live only a couple blocks from where the downtown protests were being held yesterday and I had steeled myself for a long night of sirens and angry…

This shouldn’t be news to anyone by now, but tourism and hospitality stand to be the worst affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and, to add injury to injury, probably face the slowest recovery. All accommodations with the exception of the most robust hotel chains will hear a near-death rattle at…

I spent a few hours making this topical/evergreen “Wash your hands” coronavirus t-shirt design and it turned out great. It’s been suggested that people might like to *buy* my little project. So! I’ve designed two shirts: One with the “Wash your hands” multilingual design on the front and a second…