It started with the lawn mower this summer. It wouldn’t start. I changed the spark plug and filter and it still wouldn’t start. So then I tore apart the carburetor and cleaned the injectors. The mower started, albeit reluctantly. Over the holiday weekend the lawn mower died again. After dozens of pulls on the starter, I gave up and rolled the old red workhorse into the garage. I sat there for a while, staring at the machine. Debating internally whether…
The two minute walk from my job site office to my construction site is along a leafy well known downtown street in the East Bay. Restaurants and bookstores line the road on each side. A popular university is nearby. My walk is like crossing through another dimension where in the span of moments I encounter the entire social economic spectrum of our country. Street people. Drug addicts. High school students. Graduate students. Immigrants. Blue collar workers. Foreign students. Millionaires. Babies….
In the year 216 BC, Hannibal pulled off one of the greatest military maneuvers in recorded history at Cannae: the Pincer Movement. This occurred during the Second Punic War in a heated match between superpowers for control of the known world. At Cannae, the Carthaginian general Hannibal was able to encircle the Romans and annihilate them in battle using unit placement strategy and tactical maneuvering. Prior to this battle his army, including elephants, had crossed the Pyrenees and Alps via…