Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on January 30th, 2024 in Main 
Jasper Mall is a 2020 documentary about a dying mall in Jasper, Alabama. The film follows Mike, the mall’s general manager, lone security guard, only custodian, and for much of the film, Jasper Mall’s sole employee. As visitors to the mall dwindle and the anchor stores are long gone, we watch vendor after vendor contemplate retirement or relocating their businesses. Through a series of vignettes we watch retired men who meet at the same courtyard table every day to play dominos, a man who sells knives and plays his electric guitar to fill the time between customers, and a young… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on January 29th, 2024 in Main 
After nine days away, Susan and I have returned home from vacation. We spent five days cruising on the Carnival Paradise, and four days driving to and from Tampa. This time our cruise ports were the Cayman Islands and Cozumel. We’ve been to Cozumel multiple times, but this was was our first time to the Grand Cayman Island. In Cozumel we returned to our favorite resort (Mr. Sancho’s) and on Grand Cayman Island we went on an excursion that involved interacting with stingrays. I’ll be writing more about both of those excursions later this week. The Carnival Princess is the… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on January 22nd, 2024 in Main 
In the early 2000s I got my first GPS device. To be clear it was not one of those small, cute GPS units that attached to the windshield with a suction cup. It was a device that connected to a laptop with a serial cable (this was pre-USB). The maps were stored on a CD-ROM. I balanced my laptop on my truck’s center console and used a power inverter to power the whole mess. And while it worked, I knew at the time that it was a bit of a Frankenstein solution. I had the same feeling when I took… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on January 10th, 2024 in Main 
Before I can talk about these shoes and how important they were to me, I have to first talk about shirts. Around the time I graduated high school I discovered “cool” t-shirts. In college I purchased an Edward Scissorhands shirt and a yellow shirt with a black zig-zagging line that resembled Charlie Brown’s. One of my favorites was a white shirt with a can of Spam on the front. (This was a couple of years before the term would become associated with email; I just liked Spam!) Within a few years, that fun went away. I outgrew XL t-shirts, and… (read more)
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