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Big fire in a big fireplace

Pour yourself a hot drink and get comfortable.

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This is a postcard from Rockland, Maine.

The logistics

I bought a car in 2015. One of the purchase incentives was a travel coupon I could redeem for a free hotel in Paris, $50 flights to Hawaii,...

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I can't stand the expression.

Like foodie, quirky, bucket list, soak up, nestled, or authentic, "hidden gems" is a limp travel writing cliché. I'm not alone in thinking this, but whil...

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Sometimes I wonder if I would be a coward.

I think about Saving Private Ryan a lot. The second scene of the 1998 movie, the invasion of Normandy, is some of the most gripping, intense filmmaking...

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In 2014, I took Gina on a Grand Tour of Europe.

We visited London, Paris, Chartres, Normandy, Reims, Strasbourg, Flüeli-Ranft and Lucerne, Switzerland, Milan, and Rome.

This is a postcard from...

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He's not always easy to read.

But I can't put him down.

Who was Iceberg Slim?

Born in Chicago on August 4, 1918 and raised by a single mother, Robert Beck (born Robert Moppins) grew up in Milwa...

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About

A smiling Francis and me, sitting outside in front of some shrubs

Some basics

A brief biographical sketch

Me on top of a sunny Mt Pilatus in Switzerland, with mountains in the background

Travel

Pardon the saccharine and the obvious, but travel is everything

A couple standing in front of a large Gothic church, on a bridge over the Seine

France

France deserves its own section

Francis, as a two year-old in a car seat, in sunglasses reading a French picture book

Reading

The bullshit of daily life? I'd rather read.

Stage with musicians going at it—they're Gogol Bordello, and they're crazy

Music

Let me take you back

Little boy sitting on a big white bed, looking at a tablet

Television

I watch a lot more television than movies

Live action from a soccer game at Crew Stadium—yellow versus blue

Soccer

The only sport that matters

Ugly photo of a pig knuckle after it's been eaten—really, it looks horrible

Food

As a travel writer, I have to talk about food

Me in an outdoor restaurant drinking from a green coconut with a long straw

Dumb stuff

You will not feel smarter after reading this

Dumpster full of garbage

Minimalism

Trying to live simply

Me getting out of a red Ferrari F430 with a guy clapping for me

Other Interests

I've only driven a Ferrari once

Dude wearing orange pants and orange and green shoes walking on wet grass

Get off my lawn

A few brief rants

Recent Tweets

If you toggle the switch above the words "Recent Tweets" and it still says, "Nothing to see here - yet," it means the idiot who broke Twitter either hasn't gotten around to fixing this feature, or intentionally broke it to get us to pay for it (which is moronic, I can easily live without it and it generated traffic to his site).