Dispatches since 2005
The journal
Announcements, new editions, travel, diving, cooking and the working life of a novelist — 101 entries, all of them here in full.
June 9, 2006 · 204 words
Searching for Vim
This weekend, I participated as a judge in the tests of 133 candidates for black belt in the American Kenpo Karate Academy. Candidates had come from all over the country for this twice-yearly event. Some had come from sea level to test at 7000 feet on a hot, dusty mountain meadow. We started the testing […]
Read entry →May 30, 2006 · 2,025 words
Log of the Eclipse (7)
30 March, 2006 Tomb of a Poet The day began at a brutal hour of the morning. Our bags had to be packed and ready outside our rooms by 6am, so that hotel minions could carry them to the buses. I would have been perfectly happy sleeping an extra half-hour and carrying my own bag, […]
Read entry →May 24, 2006 · 2,548 words
Shadow of the Moon
March 29, 2006. Shadow of the Moon On the day of the eclipse I was permitted to sleep late, so I did. When I made my leisurely way out of the buffet carrying my breakfast, I found Kathy on the terrace overlooking the sea, talking with a Belgian couple who had flown down for the […]
Read entry →May 17, 2006 · 249 words
Thai Mastery
Inspired by the terrific meals I’ve been getting at Albuquerque’s Thai Tip restaurant, I’ve been trying to learn to cook Thai food. (I’d eat at Thai Tip every day, but it’s a 75-mile round trip.) Thai cuisine is nourishing, flavorful, healthy, and (if you stay away from the coconut milk) low in fat. It has […]
Read entry →May 14, 2006 · 2,649 words
Log of the Eclipse (5)
28 March, 2006 Pamphylian Progress In the morning we found a breakfast buffet waiting in a brilliant, sunny, glass-walled room with a view of the Mediterranean. The buffet itself occupied a space slightly larger than our spacious four-bedroom house. There were twelve kinds of bread, twenty types of muffins, eight types
Read entry →May 13, 2006 · 68 words
Maps
At Worldmapper, they create maps with the nations sized according to the item of interest. See the world’s nations sized for demographic trends, production and consumption of specific goods, immigration, and other categories. Check out this image for Royalty and License Fee Exports. As someone who makes a good part of
Read entry →May 12, 2006 · 383 words
Creeped Out
Okay, so I had this weird dream last night. It started as a wintertime visit to relatives in Minnesota. The relatives featured in the dream are in actuality dead, but in the dream they were alive. There was some intermittent but not particularly perilous walking on a frozen lake, and looking through the ice at [&hellip
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