Photo Memories of the Week
Clouds of the Week
Quote of the Week
Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory.
- Ed ViestursEd Viesturs reached the summits of all 14 of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks without supplemental oxygen, an 18 year project. And got back down.
Posted: Oct 29
Music of the Week
Category Archives: Rambles
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 Conversations, Culture, Travel
2 Comments
What We Got Here
What we got here”¦is a failure to communicate. Captain, Road Prison 36 in Cool Hand Luke Another in a set of reflections on our recent trip to New Zealand and Australia. We have lots of kinds of coffee. He shouldn’t … Continue reading