Watched Mayday last night. When a U.S. Navy pilot on a top-secret mission during the Cold War gets trapped behind enemy lines, his only chance at survival is to form an alliance with an eccentric ex-KGB agent. Don’t expect much and you may enjoy it.
My rating: ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆
What a nice surprise - my sister and brother in-law treated me and dad to cocktails and dining at the Willcox Inn in recognition of my recent retirement; although I’ve been more frequently calling it my semi-retirement because of my commitment to help and train my replacement into late fall. My sister and her husband occasionally enjoy going to the Willcox for a date night. My sister ordered her favorite cocktail “The Persian”, I ordered a “Blackberry Billy” and my brother in-law enjoyed a glass of wine. We’re pretty sure dad ordered water after he saw the menu prices, but he is not a big drinker to begin with. Both of our drinks were a very tart and we guessed that the bartender had maybe gone a little overboard on the citrus in each drink. We stuffed our selfs with menu items including: gilled baby back ribs - korean bbq, chicharrones; wings - dry rub/honey sriracha, ranch dressing; sliders - beef, bacon jam, pimento cheese; house chips with with bleu cheese dip (they were so good I think we ended up with 3 orders of these); and parmesan truffle fries. Needless to say we left happy and stuffed.
The Willcox is more than a historic inn—it’s often called the “living room of Aiken.” Dating to the city’s celebrated Winter Colony era, it blends Southern elegance with a relaxed, club-like atmosphere: fireplaces, comfortable sofas, cocktails, good food, and often live music.
The bar and dining areas attract an interesting mix of longtime Aiken residents, equestrians and horse-country regulars, business and civic leaders, retirees (ME!), well-traveled locals, and hotel guests. It’s the kind of place where people know the bartenders, unexpectedly run into friends, and linger over drinks or dinner. Dress ranges from polished casual to golf and riding-country attire. Despite its upscale pedigree, the atmosphere is generally social, comfortable, and distinctly Aiken.
Just finished watching The Silence. What do you do when you can’t trust the people you are supposed to trust, when corruption is so deep that threatens to destroy you and everything you value? From IMDB: “An eighteen-year-old struggling to integrate into a hearing world following cochlear implantation witnesses the murder of a police officer. The subsequent investigation unravels a net of police corruption."
My rating: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
From my perspective, the Greenville’s History: A city built by immigrants article in Greenville Journal really provides a wonderful perspective on Greenville as well as the entire Upstate region of South Carolina.
In today’s political world, immigration is often discussed negatively, mostly in terms of what it costs. Greenville’s history makes the opposite case. The storefronts, the churches, the neighborhoods and the downtown we brag about were built by people who came here from somewhere else, and they built them while being told they did not belong. Unless you were Cherokee, someone in your family immigrated here.
Finished reading: Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger 📚 Told from Frank’s perspective forty years after that fateful summer, Ordinary Grace is a brilliantly moving account of a boy standing at the door of his young manhood, trying to understand a world that seems to be falling apart around him. It is an unforgettable novel about discovering the terrible price of wisdom and the enduring grace of God.
Prompt: a vast field with trees and many large cows, morning fog covers the ground, peace and quiet, gentle watercolor –chaos 20 –stylize 150 –hd –profile 5stjwop
How Housing Prices and Incomes Changed in the U.S. Between 1985 and 2025 Visual Capitalist used data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and Motio Research to compare median sale prices of new homes to median annual incomes. While this draws an interesting comparison, it doesn’t truly represent a more localized comparison. For instance, it is generally understood that someone moving from the northeast will find housing prices in the south less than the home they are moving from.
Finished watching Widow’s Bay on AppleTV. It is a dark horror-comedy following Tom Loftis (Matthew Rhys), the mildly cowardly mayor of a foggy, technology-deprived New England island. Determined to build a future for his teenage son, Tom sets out to turn the struggling town into a bustling tourist hotspot. Tom is forced to team up with eccentric islanders to survive the supernatural nightmare he accidentally invited in. I have mixed feelings on this one. It was entertaining and sometimes I was drawn in by the quarky characters, but some of the supernatural stuff just didn’t grab me.
My rating: ★★★★★★★
Well this is getting to be a habit…forgetting to post my Midjourney image on Monday. I’m going to have to create a reminder so I can stay on track. I don’t recall where I originally got the prompt for this post from, but it was fun to play with.
Prompt: What if we all got along, Magazine cover art in the style of Norman Rockwell, a small town street where everyone is smiling except for one, old, grumpy curmudgeon, crisp details throughout –ar 4:5 –raw
From my Morning Brew email newsletter this morning: “Google Maps updated the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America” for users in the US, following President Trump’s executive order last week.” I certainly hope this is due to some legal parameter, otherwise I’m extremely disappointed in Google Maps. I also find a certain amount of irony in that the current government administration wastes resources, time and money on stuff like this while talking about contolling government expenses and waste.
So I did a thing this weekend. I bought a car. Not the car I had intended to buy, but one I ended up liking better and will probably, ultimately be happier with in the long run.
Monday is my last full-time day and work and then I will be semi-retired. I’ve agreed to help and train my replacement in the months ahead, so I won’t be “fully” retired until that is done. I decided some time ago that I was going to buy a new car when I retired. I wanted something basic, reliable and that I could reasonably maintain for the next 15 years or so.
My car search started a few months ago: reading articles and reviews., checking and shopping on various auto sales websites, watching YouTube videos, and basically consuming any kind of information on my quest for my next vehile. Now mind you, I usually buy a vehicle and drive it until the wheels fall off it or it is no longer logical to repair and maintain. I’ve owned a total of X cars in my lifetime:
I won’t go into deep details, but the entire puchase process ended up being much more stressful than I would have liked. After several communications with my salesperson, I headed into the dealer on Saturday morning ready to take a test drive and place my order. I was already aware that the exterior color (Celestine Blue) and interior color (Grey) was not on the lot and would have to be special ordered or traded for with another dealer.
After my test drive the sales rep casually mentioned that since it was the end of the month, the manager was making “special deals” to move some cars off the lot. He said he had never heard deals this good before and just thought I might be interested. I told I appreciated the sales pitch, but had done all of my homework and was ready to go in and see if he could find my specfic request anywhere that would trade.
I’m going to finish this in a post tomorrow.
Facing El Chapo (La Captura) is a tense crime thriller following a determined law-enforcement team pursuing a dangerous fugitive. As the manhunt intensifies, shifting loyalties, personal motives, and mounting pressure complicate the mission. Blending suspense, action, and moral ambiguity, the film explores the risks and consequences surrounding the pursuit of justice.
I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed this movie. One momoent I was crying, the next moment I was laughting, the next moment I was angry…a whole plethoria of emotions in a single movie. I rarely give a movie a 10 rating, but for me this is one of them.
I Swear is a moving biographical drama based on the life of John Davidson, who developed Tourette syndrome as a teenager in 1980s Scotland. Facing misunderstanding, ridicule, and a society with little awareness of the condition, John struggles to make sense of his uncontrollable tics while finding people who see beyond them. The film follows his journey from an isolated young man to an outspoken advocate for Tourette syndrome awareness. Anchored by a compassionate performance and moments of humor amid the hardship, I Swear is an uplifting story about resilience, friendship, acceptance, and finding purpose in life’s unexpected challenges.
My rating: ★★★★★★★★★
Explore how childhood religion and background characteristics relate to adult religious participation and affiliation. (2023–24 Religious Survey Study)
Below is where I landed:
Well my Midjourney Monday post is a little late this week. Today is Wednesday and I just realized that hadn’t made the post on Monday. I guess I’m going to have to create a posting calendar with reminders.
Prompt for this creation was adapted from a Facebook post:
pop art, vapor wave blend, surfer with athletic defined physique at the beach holding a surf board, Hawaii coastline, native flowers, linear and atmospheric perspective, high angle –sref 283922423
Top Commanders Told Hegseth Not to Cut Civilian Protection Program, Poll Showed. He Did It Anyway.:
Shortly after taking office last year, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth polled the nation’s top commanders about cutting a program designed to protect civilians during U.S. military operations.
Hegseth had bet senior officers would endorse his view that focusing on civilian security was “woke” and out of step with “maximum lethality,” current and former defense officials told ProPublica.
Instead, every commander rebuffed the idea.
Leadership that doesn’t listen…seems to epitomize the entire administration.
During a friendly catch-up chat with my old friend and mentor, she mentioned a movie classic that I decided to watch: Talk of the Town (1942)
Falsely accused of arson, charming factory activist Leopold Dilg (Cary Grant) hides in Nora Shelley’s (Jean Arthur) country cottage–the exact moment an uptight Supreme Court nominee (Ronald Colman) rents it for the summer.
Eventually, justice triumphs and Nora picks her man.
Collision (2009) is a gripping British five-part drama centered on a devastating multi-vehicle crash outside London. As detectives investigate what caused the collision, the lives of the victims, survivors, and witnesses gradually intertwine, revealing secrets, relationships, and unexpected connections. Told through shifting timelines and multiple perspectives, the series blends police procedural, mystery, and human drama, showing how one catastrophic moment can expose the hidden stories behind seemingly ordinary lives.
This looks like it might be worth a watch:
“Brothers” follows McConaughey and Harrelson, who play fictionalized versions of themselves, and whose friendship is thrown into chaos when they uncover a decades-old secret: they might actually be brothers. After Woody’s daughter’s engagement falls apart, he loads up the family and heads to Austin for an extended stay at Matthew’s ranch. But what begins as a healing getaway quickly spirals when Matthew’s mother, Ma Mac (played by Holland Taylor), accidentally lets slip a long-buried secret that the two friends might actually be brothers. As Woody turns the ranch upside down in pursuit of the truth, Matthew finds himself juggling an entirely different identity crisis: a potential run for governor of Texas. The result is a heartfelt, chaotic and wildly funny story about friendship, family, fame and the messy line between myth and reality.
Do you know these folks in your work/school/social life?
The first talked about himself a lot, jumping in on other people’s stories to tell his own slightly better version of whatever had just been said. His colleagues let him, but their faces had gone politely blank, the look people wear when they’re waiting for something to end. The second was his opposite: warm and pleasant whenever someone spoke to him, but only when someone spoke to him. He gave brief answers, handed the floor straight back, and initiated nothing. It was the third who intrigued me the most, because he was the one the whole group kept reorienting toward. What stood out was the way he moved attention around the group, asking questions and handing the floor to different people, while being just as comfortable taking it himself, telling his own stories without waiting to be asked. When he spoke, the same faces that had gone blank for the first guy came back to life. People leaned in. And even when someone else had asked the question, they would answer while looking at him. He came across as the “leader” of the group, even though he seemed to be on a similar professional rank with his colleagues.
Folk med ångest (Anxious People) is a warm, quirky Swedish Netflix miniseries adapting Fredrik Backman’s novel. A botched bank robbery turns into a hostage situation at an open house, investigated by a clumsy father-son police duo. The six short episodes balance gentle humor with poignancy as eccentric characters reveal their anxieties and quiet struggles. Charming performances and Backman’s signature empathy shine, even if the mystery feels secondary. A comforting, human comedy-drama. I read the book sometime last year and really enjoyed - as I have with Backman’s other books.
Finished watching the first season of Bergerac on PBS Masterpiece. I didn’t realize this was a remake of an earlier version featured on BritBox. It looks like there were nine seasons for the original and there is only one season of the new version, although most of sources indicate there are two. Ex-cop Jim Bergerac is forced to confront a troubling past case when a wealthy woman is murdered, pushing him to overcome personal demons and reignite his investigative prowess to navigate family tensions and law enforcement scrutiny.
This was fun. I did better than I expected.
Off By — age calibration Bias: -1.3 yrs (well calibrated) Typical miss (RMSE): 2 yrs over 7 faces
Try for yourself at https://www.atvbt.com/just-a-number
I am currently reading The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen: 83 1/4 Years Old. The book is a fictional diary of an elderly gentlemen living in a care home in Amsterdam. The book includes the wit and wisdom of this elderly gentleman as he observes the characters, happenings and world around him.
As I move into my own retirement, I felt particularly connected to the story by the following text:
I, Hendrikus Gerardus Groen, am ever the civil, ingratiating, courteous, polite, and helpful guy. Not because I really am all those things, but because I don’t have the balls to act differently. I rarely say what I want to say. I tend to choose the path of least confrontation. My specialty: wanting to please everybody. My parents showed foresight in naming me Hendrik: you can’t get any blander than that. I’ll wind up spiraling into depression, I thought. That’s when I made the decision to give the world a little taste of the real Hendrik Groen. I hereby declare that in this diary I am going to give the world an uncensored exposé: a year in the life of the inmates of a care home in North Amsterdam.
Well okay, maybe I’m not going to be quite that bold, but I do plan to express my thoughts, feelings and opinions more openly going forward in life. And this blog is just the start of that.
This image was created with the following prompt: A fit young male tennis player captured in a mathematical sequence of motion, the movement of the arm and tennis racket are shown in a sequence of separate ghosted frames tracing an elegant curved trajectory across the frame, velocity vectors, acceleration arrows, Cartesian axes and time markers surrounding the objects, each position precisely plotted, diagram of technical physics meets surreal biology,, sophisticated and extremely detailed , fine indigo ink on old paper, in the style of Leonardo Da Vinci –chaos 25 –ar 3:4 –stylize 250 –hd –v 8.1
The prompt was modified from a Facebook post in the Midjourney Images & Insights. Share, Discuss Your Best Creations, Prompts. #mjbest_mathart - Starting from a prompt by Paweł Ceran (https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1FPAYqZVCb/)
