The surface is loose and powdery:
I can kick it up loosely with my toe.
Not quite as well-known as the scripted “one small step, one giant leap” statement, perhaps, but this follow-on spontaneous comment by Neil Armstrong on 20 Jul 1969 is true to the spirit and reality of exploration. What would the surface of the moon be like where they landed? Listening to him talk, it seems clear they didn’t know exactly what they were getting into. Continue reading
Pushing back as hard as I can, I still find myself drawn inexorably inwards by his greater strength. My outstretched hand hits his chest first, then slides up as I can’t hold the distance between us. When he finally stops pulling me towards him, my right hand is up under his chin, forcing his head back.
It happens so fast that I have no time to consider whether to resist or not. Grabbed, I am just in reaction mode from the get-go. As everything comes to a standstill, I realize that the others in the room are laughing. Continue reading
“Let him retire with dignity.”
– Stephen Pyne, Arizona State University
Scholar of forest fire history
The “him” in this case is Smokey the Bear, whose prevention on fire prevention is dated, according to Pyne. Continue reading
Our basement shelves host a jury-rigged lat-pulldown centre: Two rubber physio bands hooked over the junction of a vertical and a horizontal member. Anything to not have to go to the community gym.
As I kneel and then pull down against the resistance of the bands, I notice two faces in the wood’s grain. Are they expressing amazement or alarm, do you think?
You are now entering
the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.
Thus spake the roadside sign. I looked around, but saw no sign of Chesapeake Bay. Not surprising: in search of redbud in bloom, we were booting up Interstate 81 near Roanoke VA, which is about 250 miles inland from Chesapeake Bay.
As we flashed past the sign at 70 mph, I missed the fine print so I don’t know why it was there. There didn’t seem to be any commercial purpose, beneficiary, or sponsor. Was it just a whimsical FYI impulse from some State of Virginia DOT worker? Not likely. Was it a warning from the stewards of Chesapeake Bay along the lines of, “Anything you dump here pollutes the water a long way from here”? More likely.
Or was it, perhaps, the start of a new campaign to alert people to where they are with respect to North America’s watersheds? You laugh, but it could be so. Continue reading
We’ve shared some time at Huntington Beach State Park before (and before, and before). And before that, too.
But not yet this year! On our way home from Phoenix we stopped in Myrtle Beach for two weeks. One fine, sunny day I headed out to Huntington to see what old friends or new friends might be in camera range. Continue reading
My back hurts.
Do I sound peevish? Or look poutish? In my defence, I’m not whining to a chance encounteree on an elevator: I’m answering a standard intake-interview question from a new physiotherapist. Quite reasonably he wants to know, “Why are you here?”
My back hurts.
You want the long version or the short version? Oh, what the heck. It’s a long weekend, isn’t it? Summertime, and the livin’ is easy, and all that, no? Settle in.
This started, as so many things do, with me saying, “Huh? What’s with that?” In this case, the “that” was a big honkin’ American flag atop a car dealership adjacent to one of the many freeways gracing metro Phoenix. But the flag wasn’t just big: That made sense given the flagpole’s height. I mean, if you want to attract buyers from outer space or even from out-of-state, of course the pole has to be high and the flag has to be big. No, it was the proportions that bothered me: Old Glory was Too Long. Wasn’t it? Continue reading
Neighbours can qualify as good in several ways:
For me, peonies fall into the fussy-flower category, so I’m grateful someone else has the patience to nurture them. Like the magnolia blooms that survive the squirrels, they’re lovely at every life stage and from every angle.
Posted: 2025 Aug 20
