“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.” Buddha…
Category: Whimsy
Psychedelic, Man…
Did a little playing with Photoshop today. Just fooling around to see where it would take. Ended up in a very 2001: A Space Odyssey sort of visual space…
I can see how this can get very addictive…to the point of absurdity. Still.…
2009…Assessment
Annual reassessments are dicey things. If you have a terrific year, they can sound like bragging, which would be nice for a change. If you had an absolutely lousy year, they sound like whining, something I do enough of as it is.
On the other hand, they can be autobiographical in instances where the possibility of anyone (including yourself) ever doing an “official†biography is next to nil. In this instance, honesty is called for, the kind most people rarely indulge in public. It gives one pause to consider the responsibility latent in such an enterprise.
But, as they say, it’s my blog and I’ll bloody well write what I want.…
New Look
Since I’m in the process of penning a contemporary murder mystery, I thought it might be a good idea to trade in the silver space suit with shoulder flashes and Flash Gordon ray gun for a more up-to-date image. Last week, Donna and I had some fun doing new photos. One of them will end up being a new bio image for conventions, interviews, and the like, but I had wanted something with a bit more panache, a bit more attitude, a bit more…
Well, I like this. I don’t think it would be suitable for Christmas Cards, but it’s kind of fun in the direction I was attempting.…
Christmas Card (more or less)
It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that I don’t care for snow. It looks great when it’s fresh and thick, makes the trees all pretty, and does wonderful things for mountains, but on city streets, in traffic, or even in front of my house on the sidewalk, requiring shoveling, forget it. Before getting my driving license I liked it. Went to Art Hill, played, as a little kid looked forward to building castles, all that good ol’ fashion cool stuff. I have learned to dislike it. Especially in my town, where people seem annually to forget how to drive in it.…
Secular Charity
On the chance that you’re like me and don’t really want to hand your money over to a religious organization and trust that the charity work you think you’re paying for won’t be redirected into missionary work, here is a link to a list of secular and atheist charities.
I’m not at all sure if anyone assumes atheists are the functional equivalent of Scrooge at this time of year—assuming anyone thinks about it at all—but it’s nice to be able to point out that, in fact, we’re not. If you think about it for a minute, atheists ought to be more likely to support charitable work, since we believe that people are all we’ve got. …
A Walk Along the Highway of Life: Morning, 12-5-09
Some people have traditions a bit different. Today, Saturday, December 5th, 2009, Donna indulged one of hers’ along with me and Coffey. Highway 40 has been in the process of being rebuilt between Kingshighway and 270 for the last few years. Fears and fretting about much disruption this was likely to cause proved exaggerated, though it has made for a lot of grumbling. But the highway department has come in pretty on or before schedule and within budget and Monday, the 7th, it the whole thing is about to reopen for traffic.
So we went down to one part of it this morning to walk the highway. …
How Do I Bio, Let Me Count The Ways…
I have to write a new bio. I’ve been needing to do this for some time. I had a few prepared bios for conventions and such, tailored depending on who I sent them to. Magazine bios, con bios, conference bios…they all required a bit of tweaking. But they’re all pretty much out of date.
I’m going to do this during the coming week. Cull through all the details that would seem to make me an important person, someone people might wish to come listen to or see. I have a difficult time with these, which is why I write most all of them in third person. …
Misty Mountains
One of the trips we don’t make anymore is south to Atlanta. When our good friends Kelley and Nicola lived there, we went down a few times, most notably for their wedding. That trip was an adventure. We often make long drives at night. Donna is good at the wheel in the dark (I fall asleep, no matter how much caffeine or hours of napping beforehand) and it chews up mileage during a period when not much else is happening. It also afford us sunrises on the road, which can often be spectacular…or just profound.
The trip down for their wedding took us through a storm. …
A Little Bragging
It’s my blog, I get to be self-indulgent. I want to brag a little. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep this up, but for now it feels good to be able to make these claims.
I’m 55. I am amazed at that fact when I stop to think about it. I don’t feel 55. But having never been it before, I’m not exactly sure how it’s supposed to feel. In any event, I am, as I say, 55.
This morning I went to the gym.
I went to the gym after walking the dog—about a mile, that’s what we usually do—during which hegira I had to run a full block twice to avoid loose dogs. …