I was working on the map of the planet tonight, calculating measurements.  I have drawn it on grid paper (made it mahself in Word), onto a matrix of 36 squares by 18.  Obviously, this is to work out the “degrees” of the sphere.  I have also been laboring under the design assumption that the squares are 720 miles each side.  This gives me a planet with a tidy circumference of 25,920 miles.  Immediately, I began to see my problem.  The longitude is only comprised of eighteen squares, for a total …

It has been exactly one month since my last post.  And, I normally endeavor to produce more output that that.  The truth is that instead of on my blog, I’ve been working on something else.

Last night, a line of bad weather stretched laterally across most of Kentucky, and was moving south toward Nashville.  We were under a Tornado Watch for about an hour and a half.  One of the great benefits of a storm door (which we only recently installed; I’ve never lived at a place with one before now) is the ability to open the main door and watch the outside through a safely-locked triple-pane of glass.  The wind began to thrash the tops of the trees; the darkness over the neighborhood was …

1:11 AM and I’m just now drowsy. Actually,  I was plenty drowsy when I was supposed to be drowsy and going to bed – that just wasn’t really an option.  So I got over that, and spent the next couple of hours blogging a draft reply to my “Perplexing” post from a month or so ago.   It’s taking longer than I had hoped because (a) it’s really tough to care about anything optional since everything at work is like a daily sledgehammer beating (b) I am rightfully held to a …

Six degrees.  That’s how cold it is here in Music City.  I took the trash and recycling out this morning and HOMAGAWD.  I was also thinking; if you added ten degrees, it would still be 16.  If you added another ten, it would STILL be under freezing.  Another ten, and we’d still be saying “Holy cow, it’s cold outside.”  Everything may be relative, but sometimes it’s in a weird way.
“Cold! If the thermometer had been an inch longer we’d have frozen to death.” – Mark Twain

Very early this morning, I received an email from one of my co-workers whom I’ve known for over a decade now and I consider one of my very closest friends. His sister’s son was shot and killed late last night by his brother’s son (victim and shooter were cousins). Without going into details, this is one of a series of sorrows that has befallen my friend’s family. In addition, his mom (victim and shooter’s grandmother) is in poor health, and has been for some time. He …

(Savage Gulf State Natural Area – typed on the trail – Day 1)
Taking a break on the trail. Been hoofing it for about 55 minutes, and I think I’m about one and a half miles in. I’m not in the shape I thought I was. At least to be carrying forty pounds of gear. I have to spend some more money and go lighter-weight.
I’m eating pecans as trail “mix,” since I’m still on South Beach Phase One. I am seriously missing the carbs right now. There …

Being walkers with the dawn and morning,
Walkers with the sun and morning,
We are not afraid of night,
Nor days of gloom,
Nor darkness–
Being walkers with the sun and morning.
- Langston Hughes

I thought last night of the persistent phrase that Republican pundits have used since 2002: the Democrats would be “on the wrong side of history.”  History proved each pundit amazingly wrong.  I thought of the people that are predicting socialism, widespread abrogation of rights, and a decline of society.  I thought of the people that claim their personal knowledge of our President-elect’s …

It’s been over a week now since my early-morning trip to the ER at Vanderbilt.  I ended up going because after one of my coughing fits, there was a thirty- to forty-second period that I was not breathing.  Out or in, not a single breath.  I had been having some coughing that I had to gasp afterwards; a slow, loud intake of air that took at least half a minute to just get back enough air to feel like I could still breathe.  But a week ago, it just stopped.  …

I saw this in a webcomic:
We can spend our lives always seeking, wanting more
or we can be satisfied with what we’ve got.
Which is the greater tragedy?