[From June 22, 2014]

The highway of my life is littered with poor choices: Sea Monkeys, The Great Plywood Raft Debacle of 1981, The Great Dating My Buddy’s Sister Debacle of 1991, the “pet” copperhead that I had in a bucket for all of ten minutes before my uncle freaked out and beheaded it with a shovel, the whole being-a-lawyer thing. But the failure to plan that led me to lodge for the night at the Day’s Inn of Dalhart, TX may be my Waterloo. 

And yet, like a phoenix from the flames, the online review I am now motivated to write – once I am back home and armed with a thesaurus, a fifth of gin and a copy of Orwell’s 1984 – may prove to be my magnum opus.