Category Archives: Rambles

Bits and pieces provoked by moving through space, history, and the calendar.

In the Face of Dreadful Odds

“That’s a story every Australian knows and, now, you do too.” I stand there, brought up short. It isn’t the first time. It’s been all of four hours since we met our Melbourne tour guide. We can see he’s lanky … Continue reading

Posted in Feeling Clearly, Through History | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Wit and Wisdom in Wyoming

“Ah, Wyoming. It makes Nebraska look picturesque.” Dismissing both Wyoming and Nebraska with one practiced parry, the wit represents the confluence of heritage (Italian), upbringing (New Jersey), and training (courtroom litigation). But, as we find to our sorrow the next … Continue reading

Posted in Laughing Frequently, Through Space | Tagged | 10 Comments

How to Estimate an Alligator’s Length

“To estimate an alligator’s length, convert the distance in inches from the tip of the nose to the eye ridge into feet.” I check it twice. Yes, that’s what it says, apparently dead serious, no pun intended. Continue reading

Posted in Laughing Frequently, Through Space | Tagged , | 12 Comments

What It Is to Scale the Heights

Putting genteel Georgia behind us, we angle across rural northern Florida to the Gulf Coast and hang a right. And then we drive. And drive. Most of those two days in early January is spent on the who-knew-it-was-so-wide Florida panhandle, … Continue reading

Posted in Thinking Broadly, Through History | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Humble Pie

They don’t have Pepsiâ„¢. Well, maybe that’s a little sweeping. In the spirit of Heinlein’s Fair Witnesses, let me amend that statement to reflect precisely what I saw or, more accurately, did not see. In four weeks in the major … Continue reading

Posted in Laughing Frequently, Through Space | Tagged , | 8 Comments

Critters and ShamWows

Using my camera’s zoom, I keep my distance while documenting the encounter. Although it’s pretty surely dead, you never know what will jump up and suck your face off. Continue reading

Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Photos of Fauna, Through Space | Tagged | 8 Comments

Unusual

“Is that a tip?” The speaker is the desk manager at our hotel in Rotorua, a seismically active area of New Zealand. Well, an area where the country’s ubiquitous seismic activity shows in the form of steam vents, geysers, acidic … Continue reading

Posted in Laughing Frequently, Through Space | Tagged , | 6 Comments

An Empirical Test Could Help

And, of course, you’ll see the water draining the other way. Before our trip to New Zealand and Australia, several people primed us to watch for a counter-clockwise spin in the bathtub or toilet. Coriolis effect, you know, they’d say. … Continue reading

Posted in Thinking Broadly, Through Space | Tagged | 10 Comments

Say What?

And we’re coming up on the county symmetry, on the left. As we boogie down the highway, our guide is narrating notable bits in our surroundings, as usual, and I am listening oh so carefully, also as usual. OK, my … Continue reading

Posted in Language and Communication, Laughing Frequently, Through Space | Tagged , , | 2 Comments