Our London Times (Not to Be Confused with ‘The London Times’ So Don’t Sue Me)

A view of London's great river.  I think they call it The Tim's.

A view of London’s great river. I think they call it The Tim’s.

If you have read about our trip to Paris a couple of years ago, you will recall that said exploit was in lieu of (notice my mastery of the French language) the nonsensically luxurious and exorbitant high-school graduation party that is all the rage nowadays.   Our children have opted instead to spend a like amount of money traveling to the destination of their choice:  Thing 1 chose Paris (see previous sentence above); and Thing 2 chose London.  It is this latter escapade from which we have returned some time ago that I now relate for your vicarious reading pleasure.   On a thematic note, you will notice that the Thing 1 Paris trip was all about art and architecture while this Thing 2 London trip was a tribute to pop culture and its anomic icons.

What a cute little Ben...

What a cute little Ben…

Day 1:  Our overnight flight arrived in the morning and we hit the ground running by immediately taking a nap. Continue reading

The Best of TIM’s Best of 2015

Happy New Year!  Here’s hoping that your arbitrarily chosen day celebrating the interminable passage of time was filled with all the whimsicality such inconsequential festivity deserves!  And what better way to mark such an insignificant festal period than to also mark the best of the best of one’s experiences contained within that very same random twelve month period?!

And so here it is:  the enormously personal and subjective and somewhat recommendary listing of my favorite happenings of the very comma-filled foregoing, that is, previous, year, namely, the second annual

The Best of TIM’s Best of 2015 (see above)

Starting with… Continue reading

The Best of TIM’s Best of 2014

Happy New Year!  Today marks the beginning of a new tradition here at conTIMplating that is bound to last upwards of one year in a row!  In the past, during the last week of the year, I have daily posted on my personal Facebook wall hi-lights of the previous year in terms of ‘Best ofs’ such as Best Book Read or Best Movie Seen or Best Comeback Thought Of A Week Later or Best Abbreviation For A Latin Phrase Meaning ‘And So Forth’, etc., etc.

To illustrate my desire for equality and unity, I have decided to yoke said numerous wall posts together into one culminating conglomerate blog post that singularly covers my multiple personally favored favorites of this past year entitled

The Best of TIMs Best of 2014 (see above) Continue reading

The Best Holiday Travel Guide I Have Written All Day Yet

Well according to the likes of Perry Como, Ed Ames and Andy Williams, it’s that time of year when everyone starts going over the river and through the woods heading for Pennsylvania and some homemade pumpkin pie.  So what better way to serve my fellow man and bring peace on earth than to share from my vast experience of being somewhere else and offer some useful and very alliterated helpful Hannukah holiday travel tips?  So here goes…

HOLIDAY TRAVEL TIP #1:  Do not travel.

This is actually the only tip I have to offer but admittedly, it is born of genius. If my life experience has taught me anything, Continue reading

A Rough Golf Trip Was a Fore-gone Conclusion

There comes a time in a Minnesota man’s life when he gets tired of driving to work on something that more closely resembles a luge track than any sort of roadway infrastructure and he starts seeing visions of Mr. Tumnus scampering through the eternal winter snow.  This sort of mid-winter crisis occurs about the same time every February.  Even cutting across the lake to save ten minutes of driving time loses its exhilarating edge.  It is at this time that the Minnesota man must escape the bonds of sub-zero normalcy and, with The Queen Mother’s permission, take part in a ceremonious man-ritual known as “The Golf Trip.”

For those unfamiliar, The Golf Trip is a time set aside whereon a group of friends seek warmer climes and do nothing but play golf, pop Advil, and consume irrational amounts of red meat, as there are no primary spousal sources of authority about to chide one into acting responsibly and wasting time on things like hygiene or vegetables.  Sometimes, if there is time left over, sleep may occur. Continue reading