Rav, my latest new Flickr contact (a young Japanese woman in Kobe) took this photo. She has a terrific eye, and always titles and captions her photos with contemplative musings and observations. A couple of her shots are among my favs on Flickr. No doubt the green (my current favorite color) is [...]

Well, it’s time to restart the Pond. I’ve had the pump off since December 21 because of the cold, but spring is around the corner and the scum is growing. I have to do a lot of work on it to try to cut down the water loss in the waterfall/stream area. I started a [...]

The Flickr group “Aesthetics of Failure” caught my eye so I joined it. It’s full of mistake photos, some of which are quite interesting, others just bad. This one struck me as cool, probably because of the green (I’m into green these days—must be the landscaping) and the sense of mossy secret [...]

I am always impressed by people with special skills. It doesn’t even matter what. Of course, there are the super-skills that all can appreciate and stand in awe of—violin virtuoso, math whiz, uber-hacker, master chef, star opera singer, ballet dancer, etc.—but I’m talking here about simpler things. For example, the way our wall guy, Chris [...]

Safa got a scooter from Daddy for Valentine’s Day. It wasn’t exactly an intended gift, but she enjoyed a friend’s scooter so much at a play date last week that I noted it as a possibility. She’s a bit tentative at first, but after warming up she sticks with scooting and not stopping. That’s Radnor [...]

Tomorrow the Kyoto Treaty (you know, the international agreement to reduce global warming that the Bush administration farted on) goes into effect. Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, acknowledged that without the U.S. (the world’s biggest polluter) signing, “The greatest value [of the treaty] is symbolic.” That’s great. Maybe the [...]

Such as it is. It’s never really been a holiday I’ve celebrated with past girlfriends or present wife. Too contrived, too Hallmark. Still, it can provide a useful function in catalyzing an expression of feelings toward someone, so I guess I shouldn’t diss it too much. I associate it with handing out store-bought cards and [...]

I’ve been thinking about the idea of the underdog lately and at lunch today Safa engaged me in a discussion of it. I was mentioning to her about how Major League Baseball spring training is around the corner and she started asking me what teams I liked (she already knows about the Cubs). I told [...]