At the end of eight grade, my mom had a painting I did in Mrs. Schmidt’s art class framed. “I love this painting so much,” she said as I held it out in shame before me. The only problem was I didn’t paint it. Nor did I have the courage to tell my mom the truth. I had no idea how long this one little white lie, meant to cover my tracks from a single missed assignment, would follow me throughout my life: from my teens to my twenties, thirties, and beyond. To back up for a moment and reveal the…

I have no hopes to convince anyone of my point that may or may not surface in this post, but heck this is my blog home, and here I am right! Or welcome to be told how I am wrong, Just visit, ok? So I came across this post — er newsletter thing by a Matthew Guay titles “What we lost when we lost comments – Comments require commitment, but they’re worth it.” And I land in agreement with the call to come back to our blog homes, to stop spending all day harking at the social media malls. You can…

I’ve been meaning to write something, anything, about my experiences over the last, like, five months–holy shit, it’s been nearly five months since I left the US. Holy shit! I thought just now, sitting on the couch, wondering what I should do with myself, since my wife is traveling for a few weeks and I have essentially nothing going on that doesn’t involve walking and feeding and cuddling with my dog... Today marks four months in Poland. Exactly four months ago I was boarding a train from…

There is a great deal of foolishness in deciding how much suffering one ought to endure for God, especially when the person making that decision has very little understanding of what he is doing to his own body. Penance is a serious matter, mortification is a serious matter, and the body must be disciplined, but it is entirely possible to become so concerned with offering suffering that you neglect the ordinary obligation to exercise good judgment. i have been reminded of this rather…

I just moved into a new apartment, and I’ve been building a lot of IKEA furniture. I just finish a bed frame and dresser, both made of cheap raw pine, and stained them with Mr. Cornwall’s Super Duper Everlasting Oil, which is food safe and expensive. An exorcise in contrasts. I’m 40 years old, and this is the first time I’m ever living alone. I’m really enjoying being the only person I need to consult in decorating the apartment. The space is still in progress, but it’s already molded to me.

With week 42 complete, it's time for me to remind everyone that there are now 9 weeks left in 2026. Do you have a project you wanted to finish this year? Time to get moving (he says with many incomplete projects). I had something to say about resolutions and how they're meaningless (before diving into how it's just January 1st as a day to start being meaningless, and if there's something you want to change in your life, start now) but I can't remember what prompted it. It came to mind while I…

i’ve worked for about 3 years in my life almost no one asks how i did it and if i get asked, the answer is: you were lucky instead people judge me for how i live and complain that their life is so hard fascinating… and please don’t ask ;-)

Many years ago, when I first tried gaining weight, I followed a diet plan that called for me to eat egg whites. The only option that came to mind at the time was to buy a carton from the grocery store. It tasted very unpleasant, and it was probably processed. I tried it a couple of times and gave up. As I started working out with a personal trainer recently, I’ve also needed to adhere to a diet plan. Once again, egg whites. I was about to add it to the grocery list when my wife made a…

Earlier this month I went to quilt guild meeting and a fellow knitter/spinner/quilter/pen-lover came up to me and handed me a ziplock bag full of ink samples to try. I had brought her 2 little vials, so the trade was quite uneven, but I was delighted. (Thank you K!) Since then I’ve had fun getting out my swatching equipment and seeing what she shared. So far that Dominant Industry Sunset has stolen my heart, but I’m enjoying a variety of seasonal colors and I’ve got lots more still to swatch.…

I ask this with all the judgment I can muster: What’s wrong with people? I try my best not to annoy anyone when I’m out and about, but some people don’t seem to care. Smokers above all, who lost their sense of smell (and dignity) ages ago and seem to think they’re not constantly polluting a huge area around them. Then there are people who use their speakers for phone calls—or, even better, FaceTime calls, holding their phones so the person on the other end can see nothing but their nose hairs.…

A lot of new construction these days starts with a concrete slab, but this building has a post and pier beginning. One thing you don’t have to worry about in Hawaii is cold weather freezing your house’s pipes! Our water line runs above ground from the meter to the house. There are disadvantages to this though. Last week, the line ruptured because it runs through a clump of palms, and those growing plants finally bent the water line beyond its ability to flex.

Forgive me dear reader, it’s been well over a week since my last post but for good reason. Not least, I got my first head cold of the season, which is typical as my Covid/Flu shots are not till the last day of October. Quebec is always late rolling out free shots for the elderly — having long since stopped offering them for anyone under 60 back in 2024. And yes, sadly, I now fall into that category: elderly. But the free part is mostly because of health issues. Anyway, all this to say I am…

10th October 2026Oxford City FC were making one of their longest journeys of the season in the Conference North, taking on league newcomers Hebburn Town on the southern side of the River Tyne.It seemed a worthwhile challenge to make it to this one.Actually it falls short of the longest of City's 26/27 trips - South Shields' Mariners Park ground is all of 1.1 miles further away.My day started in Newcastle city centre which was enjoying glorious blue skies but wicked cold gusty winds.The stencils…

⌾ : Fujifilm XT5.⚲ : Queen Victoria Building, Sydney. Simply put, I just loved the colour and lit ambience of this stairwell. What colour would you call this? Blue? Green? Im just going to call it as: the green that you find amongst moss deep in a woodland forrest. So I would shoot it. I waited an inordinately long time for someone to come down the stairs. Not just someone, but someone interesting. A fanciful hat, or someone dressed in a Victorian gown, or a dude dressed as a capsicum, or a…

i got removed from my main work project this week. my supervisor called me apropos of nothing in the middle of the day (always scary) and said that the client is renegotiating their contract for next year, and are happy to go ahead as long as i'm not on the project. this stung for the normal reasons - a feeling of incompetence, like i'd been trying my best and trying to keep an ear open for how people thought i was doing and not hearing anything, assuming no news was good news. also a bit of…

We drove our rental Noovo Plus from Noovo’s Los Angeles Boutique north out of LA, along I-5, ending up at Stanger Vineyards for the night. This post is about the drive… which ended up taking an hour longer than expected.An interactive map of our route:On our way:We stopped at a Ralphs grocery store to buy food and other supplies for the van:The van is 20’ 11” long, or a bit more with the storage box and spare tire on the back. So a little long for a regular parking space, but we could have…

There is no light without dark. Right now, though, it feels like everything is black and white; black or white. The way that many express themselves feels very polarised. One thing is evil: bringing certain doom to humanity, destruction and the end of the world. Another thing is good: a promised utopia, human progress—the one thing we have been waiting for throughout the history of mankind. Today, we don't have simple answers to the challenges facing the world we are creating for ourselves. It…

My wife and I lived with dogs for most of our 40 years of marriage.Our first dog came before our daughter was born. He was our gateway "child." One of the responsibilities of a dog owner in an urban or suburban place is to pick up after it. The concept disgusted me: turning a plastic bag inside out, grabbing it with my hand, and carrying it until I came across a trash can. Honestly, I often skipped it when I didn't think anyone was watching.That said, it irritated me when I came across unpicked…

The link. The paragraphs: “Will death metal still be played in the men’s room???” the very first commenter asked. “The answer is somewhere between Yes and Hell Yes!” (Greg) Koch answered, promising that “It WILL return. Louder.”

Second post about yesterday's Dedicated Photography Time with Daniel. The photos above are from our visit to Halde Norddeutschland. 359 steps to get up there. (I need some cardio training in my life.) It was pretty windy at the top. Winter is coming. Still enjoyed myself tremendously. 👉 View 6 more images

A friend pointed me to this site whose owner (Josh) has started a petition to close one of 356 subway stations in New York. The station being targeted is the 3rd Avenue stop on the L train that takes commuters from downtown Manhattan into Brooklyn. At least, that's Josh's motivation since he is one of those commuters.He throws out some scary numbers.Evidently, over 1,800 hours per day are "saved" if the L train just skips that one stop. The underlying economic driver is that the 3rd Avenue L…

The Old DiariesI recently unearthed two of my mother’s diaries, one from 1976 and one from 1981. She is gone now, and the diaries are what remain of her daily attention: who came, who left, what was said, where I was.Between them, they recorded two events that stopped me in my tracks.She was precise by nature, a detailed person who wrote things down because she meant them to stay put. I have little reason to doubt her. But I’ll note that a diary is not a camera. It is my mother’s record, shaped…

Doughnuts For Breakfast This morning I woke up feeling tired. I thought I slept well and even enough, but my body just wants to stay in bed and do nothing. Regardless I got up and drank my coffee. I was anxious to get out into the garage and do something as soon as it warmed up enough outside that I could take the plants back outside. We will do something else with them later but with the potential frost I brought our spider plant and palm in and put them just inside the door. That is right…

READING: THE ROUSE, China Mieville (UK) (US+)LISTENING: DRINK: Autumn being here means I made a cherry Negroni for herself and a Godfather with orange and cinnamon bitters for myself last night. MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

My eldest son is 7 and is a lot of different things, but one thing he especially is, possibly above all else, is noisy. Even amongst his peers (and 7-year-old boys is quite the peer group), he stands out as an order of magnitude or two more noisy. It’s not just talking - he walks noisily, he eats noisily, he plays noisily. If there’s a way of doing something, you better believe he’ll be doing it with the decibels turned up. He didn’t speak for a long time as a small child, but then when he…

Yesterday was the first day of the heating season for me. The temp dropped down to freezing (0C) overnight and I set the thermostat at 70F. I don't play with it and I'll leave it set at that until I shut off the heat in may/april next year. I struggled taking the radiator covers off and stowing for the season. Coughed a lot and got short of breath quick too. Got it done albeit at an ninety year old man's pace.need a good cleaningI've been thinking a lot lately about a post by CS at Lost Art…

I wish I could defy age and time but as it is, age and time are always going to be undefeated.Therefore, I had to take a look into my past so that I can spring ahead and move forward.And I get it. I do.This is a contradiction of terms if not a contradiction of what I say to myself when I say, “the past is gone and you and I don’t live there anymore.”But dig it . . .Today is another day above the dirt and therefore, so long as I am above the dirt, I reserve the right to update my thinking. At…

📷 275/365 - Amsterdam marathon finisher medal.

🏃‍♂️ About yesterday. I wasn’t feeling great but I'm happy I tried and how it turned out. Number 6 completed ✅

We have reached the "lawns" unit in the Master Gardener certification class I am taking, and I am only half joking when I say I should ask if I can skip this unit on religious grounds. My religious/spiritual beliefs are pretty amorphous, but I have one opinion approaching dogma, and it is: Turfgrass lawns are an affront to God. If God wanted us to have monoculture turfgrass lawns, monoculture turfgrass lawns would exist in Nature. They do not. Prairies and other grasslands do, but they're…