(36 entries)

San Jose airport, United Flight 888, waiting to depart
Obviously, we made it. Indeed, we had time to buy the majority of our souvenirs, including coffee, a shirt, and some coffee liquor. We are tanner, and relaxed, though sad to return. It is always hard to return from such...

(26 entries)

Quito, Ecuador
Today, we met Tania at 5:30 am in the lobby. I ate breakfast alone since now Glen is feeling really ill. The airport was the usual gauntlet of a foreign country. First, check in and get boarding pass, then pay...

(192 entries)

Goofus and Gallant
The comparison was made before, in fact several times during the 2000 election season, but today brought it all home again: that Bush and Gore resemble so much the fictious cartoon charcters from Highlights for Children (which seemed to be...

(39 entries)

Google AdSense? Nonsense!
In the battle against comment spam (which I fight daily here at immediacy), a lot of attention was placed on blog owners like myself who have lots of posts that remain open for comments, thus facilitating the bots that search...

(22 entries)

Heading Home
We’re sitting on the plane now, about to fly back to the States (as they say here). I’m having the usual melancholy of returning home, although I know my own little “pony” will be very happy to see me. Overall,...

(12 entries)

Arrivederci
Leaving Rome, Italy We collected our things, got to our faithful Fiat, made it to the Aeroporto (only getting a little lost on the way), and checked in (very high security, including four passport checks, and attentive, but bored looking...

(120 entries)

Biking on the W&OD Trail
When J mentioned a bike ride to a pub, I didn't hesitate too long to agree. What I missed, however, was the pertinent details about the distance: 15 miles from the metro stop to the pub. Although this was on...

(58 entries)

Neko Live
I didn't get tickets to see Neko Case at the 9:30 Club, mainly because I dislike standing for three hours in a smoke-filled room. Turns out the smoke was gone, although I'm sure it was still standing-room-only, because Case is...

(46 entries)

An Inconvenient Truth
Al Gore won't win an Academy Award, but this documentary based on his slideshow about global warming will. For what this documentary does is what film does best: it takes a difficult topic--that has years of accumulated misunderstandings both real...

(6 entries)

Into Vienna
Visited the heavily touristed Stiff Melk, a Benedictine Abbey that was totally renovated in 1986 Because Of the deluge of tour buses, did not enter Drove ovor to Schallaburg, I think there may be one other tourist visiting (entrance fee...

(16 entries)

The Suburban
The Suburban Originally uploaded by engelcox. I picked up David Wondrich's _Esquire Drinks: An Opinionated & Irreverent Guide to Drinking_ from Half-Price Books when I was in Austin, and we've been having fun trying some of the recipes from...

(410 entries)

Black and Blue
by Ian Rankin I used to be quite the mystery reader, having cut my teeth on the Hardy Boys and Sherlock Holmes stories while still in grade school, then progressing through Agatha Christie, John D. MacDonald, and Dashiell Hammett in...

(36 entries)

JSA: Darkness Falls
by David Goyer (writer), Geoff Johns (writer), Stephen Sadowski (penciler), Buzz Marcos Martin (penciler), Michael Bair (penciler) Had I read the previous JSA volume, Justice Be Done, before buying this one, I probably would have passed it by. As it...

(1 entries)

The Road to Paradise is Open 24 Hours a Day
An Impression of Mount Rainier National Park (August 10-11, 1996) Sometimes one needs an excuse to travel to wonderful places close to home. A wedding reception in the resort area near Mount Rainier National Park prompted us to make the...

(31 entries)

Chop That Wood
Spent all morning working on putting up some more firewood, since we burned through the small stack that we had put away a month ago. To fully follow the extent of this, I have to show you a photo from...

(217 entries)

"Sucedio Aqui" to Polyphony
One of my resolutions this year was to return to submitting my stories and novel to editors, on the assumption that the only way to get anything published is to actually provide the opportunity for it to be read by...