Bruce's Travels

Just in time for tonight's Oscar show, (sister) Dawn and I went to see "La La Land" yesterday (Saturday 2/25) at the Prado Stadium Cinemas in Bonita Springs. It wasn't what I expected, what with the Academy's preoccupation with noir cinema, which is to say we both enjoyed this film immensely, which Dawn aptly described as a love letter to the golden age of Hollywood musicals. Great songs, great sets, beautiful dancing, and a touching love story. And, as a keyboard player, I have to say Ryan Gosling a fantastic job playing piano. According to Internet sources, he did this all himself with with no body doubles, and supposedly with just three months of piano lessons. Huh? Even at my best after five years of piano and organ and lessons, I didn't play that well! We followed the movie with a trip to Dixie Grocery/Wine/Beer Liquidators (in the same strip mall) and perused the aisles of dent-and-bents, past expirations, and food/drink experiments gone horribly wrong...

Greetings all. I have just returned from a fun and fruitful weekend, first at a watch show in Lakeland, Fla., and second a couple days with my good friends Gene and Pegg Johnson in St. Pete Beach, Fla. I left Ft. Myers for Lakeland early (6:30 a.m.) on Friday Feb. 10, the day of show, to avoid the expense of staying an extra night in Lakeland. I was giving a talk/presentation on "Elgin Wristwatches of the Roaring '20s" at 10:30 a.m. in one of the show's conference rooms, so arrived at the Lakeland Center about 9:30 a.m. in plenty of time. Picked up my registration packet, then went to the conference room where a computer was set up, along with data projector and screen. All I had to do was plug in a thumb drive I had in my pocket that had my complete Powerpoint presentation on it. I then made a quick stop to the mart room to see a couple of my contacts, Cliff Dunn, of Jacksonville, Fla., and Andy Edmiston, of Lakeland. They had a small drawer of a parts cabinet co...