Where Newport Got It Right If you have not yet seen the new Newport Beach Civic Center, go. It is a delight. More, it is a statement: this is the new Newport Beach, a place where giant international companies like Pimco call home. It is sophisticated and modern. The center contains more than the new […]
The evening before the Martin Luther King, Jr. national holiday, I dined with my friend William. We met in the bleachers at our sons’ high school games. He is about 45, medium build and black. If I were politically correct, I would use the term African-American, but I am not. We were going to the […]
One of the most unsettling things about Orange County is we tend to believe our own bad PR. We tend to believe we are “the sticks.” We are backward. The most intelligent, well-educated, successful people do not live here. They live in New York, London, Paris, Silicon Valley, Tokyo, Boston, Singapore, Washington or anywhere but […]
The Coming Revolution In Education Lately, it has become fashionable to bash the value of a college education. This is because recent graduates cannot get jobs. There aren’t many jobs and the unemployment rate for newly minted graduates in the U.S. is about 20%. We are lucky. In Greece, it is 60%, Spain 55%, France […]
This is a true story about arrogance. Specifically, mine. It begins with kayaking. I go almost every day, venturing from one of the coves in north Laguna. My usual route takes me north along the coast. I paddle to Emerald Bay and sometimes Irvine Cove. From there, I race straight out a mile, rest […]
This summer I really got into kayaking. Scratch that, I always have loved kayaking, but this summer I got into it as a balm. I had had many tense days, marked by tense situations, and I would jam home from work, run to the beach, pull out the kayak and pump into the horizon. This […]
Since nearly everyone I know is weighing in on the proposed new village entrance, so will I. But first a note on my qualifications: I am a property developer. I know how to build parking structures and I know about soil problems. My opinion about such matters is educated. I am told the new village […]
I keep having a dream I am on a body board and surfing the airwaves high above Laguna. I’ve been a surfer all my life and understand ocean waves. The best are thin, steep ones that break in a collapsing line you skim across at great speed. The worst are thick crunchers that burst out […]
America is a place of turmoil. While I was growing up in Newport Beach, there were TV stories of fire hoses spraying black people and race riots in Los Angeles. Then there was war in a place called Vietnam and my parents worried I would be called up and killed. None of it was real […]
The last one, my youngest, Harrison, graduated from Sage Hill High School. My first was Margarita Aguilar, whose whole family had come to live with mine (all nine of us in 2,300 square feet and not enough beds). It was she and brother and parents; and me and my wife and two daughters and son. […]
As I perambulate about the community, I often am asked what I do, as in, who are you? My kids are not certain, since I do not seem to have a normal job with normal hours like other fathers. Yeah, I go to meetings and talk on the cell and text and email. I’m on […]
The assistant director, Howell, was herding us into place. It was not easy because 80 percent f the cast and crew were Spanish-speaking. Howell did not speak Spanish, so as he yelled, a translator followed with his own Spanish yell, like an echo. We were in Uruguay, which is sandwiched between Argentina and Brazil and […]
My friend, Laguna’s blithe spirit January Olds, created her own skincare line January Labs. She rolled out the line about 18 months ago and now has gained national distribution. Last summer she gave me several bottles of her product and insisted I prominently display them in my bathroom for immediate use. There they stayed for […]
It is a brand new year, but before we plunge into it, let me share some thoughts for the past year, 2012, may it pass blissfully into our shared consciousness. 1. The political pundits told us the presidential election would be too-close-to call. The polls had them neck-n-neck, then on Election Day, it was over […]
When I was a kid, my family lived in old Corona del Mar and opened presents on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas morning. It was a tradition from Kansas, where my folks came of age in the Great Depression. We never got elaborate presents. They were small and inexpensive. Anything else would have been deemed […]
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