little things can make a big difference

My training has now reached the stage where all theory and paper exams are complete. All that remains between now and the 'summative' simulator exercises -- on whose satisfactory execution the continuation of my training depends --...

I was sitting in my favorite coffeehouse this past Sunday afternoon, whiling away a spectacular day over a bottomless cup of Kona coffee and the New York Time's coverage of Michael Phelps' eighth gold medal. Seeing as I'm old enough to remember Mark Spitz, 36 years ago in Munich, Phelps' magnificent quest for eight has captured my complete attention this...

It's 1976, a full year before Saturday Night Fever would tell you where to go when the record was over, a full year before Studio 54 began to fill up with the celebrities of the era. The Trammps, one of the original disco bands, down in Philadelphia, were about to release their defining single, the one song for which they would be most remembered. Not their first single, no - there was 1972's Zing! Went The Strings Of My Heart and 1973's Love Epidemic. But ...

i used to be jealous of you emma
and of what he said and wrote
about your honeyed breasts and long white legs
and how every time you turned your face away
from his kisses your little pointed chin
cut him deep and red

and i said she makes you pathetic
and said she hasn't earned your love
and other things

i'm not really jealous of you anymore
is what i'm...