“Hello. My name is Steve Cotler. Each week I go out to a ranch in the country and pick up fresh eggs and deliver them in this area at a price within a penny or two of store prices. Of course, these eggs are much fresher than store eggs because I pick [...]
One thousand words…
We scheduled our trip down the Keys so as to avoid the human embarrassments that attend Spring Break. We sought spectacular sunsets, coral reefs, beachside conversation.
We came for the waters. We were misled.
We didn’t know that the Florida colleges let out their students a week early, so that they will [...]
Everglades City, FL
I stood on the bottom coast of Florida, with the Gulf offshore, mangrove and grassy everglades in every other direction, two hours to Miami, but times away from big town currency and gloss. There are no big boxes, chain motels, or fast food franchises in Everglades City. It doesn’t look like Interstate Everyplace, [...]
My G4 is now very sick (see Intermittent Errors post).
This blog is on hiatus until the software frustrations of switching from one hunk of hardware to another are resolved.
Apple: “It’s not our issue, call Microsoft.”
Microsoft: “That’s a hardware problem, call Apple.”
Me: “Where can a buy a Luger?”
On the Gulf edge of south Florida, just a bridge away from Fort Myers, Sanibel Island is a shell-collecting singularity.
The thin island’s southern coast catches a confluence of waves, winds, and currents that drive bazillions of shells onto the beach.
At Tokyo’s Narita Airport, Mr. Mizutani shook my hand, bowed slightly and said, “Kotora-san, you have safe trip home.”
“Why,” I asked Mr. Mizutani, “do you pronounce my name Kotora? My name isn’t COAT-ler. It’s COT-ler. Why don’t you call me Katora?”
Mizutani took a deep breath and smiled broadly. “Kotora good name. [...]
Near the end of my stay, to thank me for my efforts, six Japanese executives took me to dinner at a very upscale Tokyo restaurant. I had read guidebooks that highlighted cultural differences and how Americans abroad should behave, but nothing had prepared me for this.
In the early 70’s, as assistant to the president and product manager for a small, NYSE-listed business machines company, I traveled to Tokyo to teach our Japanese affiliate how to sell our new product, the world’s first high-speed, commercial fax machine. I was 27.
My introductory talk was to 60 men, all of whom leaned [...]
Benny Silverstein and Marty Stein operated shoe stores in Oxnard, my California childhood’s small town. Marty’s store was on A Street’s east side, right next to my father’s men’s & boys’ clothing store. Benny’s store was directly across the street. Marty carried a marginally higher-priced line, but in a town that lived [...]
Today my four-year-old Mac G4 laptop began acting its age.
Groups of pixels jittered chaotically in horizontal regiments, sometimes covering the screen. Then, without anodyne application, the problem would disappear. And just as unpredictably, reappear. Further investigation revealed that these video measles increased or decreased as a function of manual pressure exerted on [...]
