Author: Jim Santos
-
Time Marches On (Us)
As of the first of this month, March of 2023, I became part of a demographic that is difficult for me to comprehend. I am now officially on Medicare. That’s right, a little later this month I will reach my 65th birthday. It all seems a little surreal to me. I can’t possibly by 65…
-
New Podcast Launch!
Phone the neighbors, wake the kids, time for a major announcement! This week marks the release of a new podcast from International Living, “Bigger, Better World”, with yours truly as the host. I know, just what a troubled country needs right now, yet another podcast. But this one is different! Because … well, because I’m…
-
Retirement Podcast – Knoxville, TN
I’m proud to announce that you can now listen to a podcast interview I did for the good folks at Retire There with Gil and Gene. Although I have written over 200 articles and a couple of books about living and retiring overseas, Gil and Gene and I discussed something a little different – Knoxville, Tennessee as…
-
Time to Grow Up
This is our second holiday season celebrated under the shadow of COVID-19, and I’ve been seeing some common themes pop up on social media revolving around family get-togethers between vaccinated and unvaccinated kinfolk. If you have browsed through Facebook or Twitter the last few weeks, you know what I mean. It seems there is always…
-
Strip-Mining Classics for Profit
I just finished watching the most recent episode of the long-anticipated Wheel of Time on Amazon, and felt compelled to write about it. I also will get into another long-awaited series, Foundation on AppleTV. I suppose I should say “spoiler alert!” because I will mention some plot points without giving too much away, but in truth, the main issue…
-
Finding My Voice
There are some old TV commercials for Reeses’ Peanut Butter Cups that are variations on a basic theme. One person is eating peanut butter, another is eating chocolate. Through a lucky mishap, they stumble into each other and one exclaims, “Hey, you got chocolate on my peanut butter!” The other retorts with “You got peanut…
-
Rising Up To Leaven
Inspired by our trip to San Francisco and the wonderful sourdough bread they have there, I decided to take advantage of our being home for the next few weeks to do something I’ve always meant to try – create my own sourdough starter. If you are not familiar with this, the starter is used instead…
-
Lesson Re-Learned
If you have read any of my books or short stories on travel, you know that Rita and I normally eschew the guided tours, preferring instead to discover and explore on our own and at our own pace. In fact, one of my recent posts was about the joy of finding someplace unexpected. It is not…
-
COVID-19 and Travel
Rita and I just returned from our trip to San Francisco, and we had a wonderful time. I wrote one article while we were still there, and I promise there are more to come. Today however, I want to take a moment to write something about the infectious elephant in the room, Covid-19. As I’ve mentioned…
-
The Simple Joys of Travel
For the past week we have been in San Francisco, California, enjoying the first real travel event since our trip to the Galápagos back in August of 2019. Sure, we took some driving trips here and there, but this was the first trip that involved air travel and was dedicated to just exploring someplace new. I’ll…