Category: Uncategorized

There\’s an amazing rain/slush/hail storm going on right now. It is glorious.

I usually listen to music song-by-song. I\’ll go through a bunch of music and throw whichever songs appeal at the time, trying to place them in a pleasing order. But for the past few days I\’ve been listening primarily to full albums. It\’s not unprecedented, but it is atypical. Here\’s a list: Decemberists – Picaresque…

I was using a Hubble Space Telescope image of NGC 1309, a perfectly-formed spiral galaxy, as a background image. But it was a square image, and it had a watermark, and I didn\’t like the colors. So I found a higher-quality image that didn\’t have a watermark, and set to work. Transformation: I made a…

I\’m currently reading a book called The Golden Strangers, by Henry Treece. It is set in Britain during the Bronze Age, at the time of the first coming of the Aryan horsemen. Here is an excerpt from the introduction. It was written by Rosemary Sutcliffe, who was a British writer of historical fiction. \”We tend…

I\’m back from Amsterdam. I brought with me two packages of ontbijtkoek (a Dutch spice cake), only one of which is for me. I promise I won\’t eat yours, Anne, no matter how tempting. I really need to find somewhere that sells it, or figure out how to make it myself. In other culinary news,…

I had a picnic lunch in a Dutch park today with some Danish guys whom I met this morning. Then we climbed trees for an hour or so, and talked to a Dutch mother who was watching us (and her kids) climb trees. I leave in a couple minutes for the Peach Premiere. I am…

I\’m safely and happily in Amsterdam now. It was an interesting trip, despite my sleep deprivation. The walk to the airport was great. I wasn\’t quite dead tired, so I was able to enjoy the cold morning air, the blue light and silhouetted clouds, the birdsong, and the sun as it peeked over the horizon.…

It\’s my turn to visit Nathan. That\’s about a week in Amsterdam, starting in two hours when I begin the six-mile walk to the airport. Then up, across the Channel, and down into Schliphol where Nathan should be waiting. Lots of pictures when I return.