January 2012
10 posts
Why Every Entrepreneur Should Self-Publish a Book... →
(via Instapaper)
1 tag
New Year's Resolutions 2012
In years past, I’ve posted my New Year’s resolutions at the beginning of the year and then reviewed them at the beginning of the next year. While I wasn’t exactly around for the start of the new year, that’s not exactly an excuse for not doing my resolutions. So, here they are, and may I be held accountable for them!
(I don’t seem to have made resolutions last year,...
2 tags
My Advice for Your Safari in Tanzania
Let’s lead off with my first suggestion here: definitely 100% you should go on a safari, and I highly, highly recommend Tanzania for that safari. It’s a place where there are amazing animals that you can get so close to; where there are friendly and happy people who will help you have an incredible time; and where you’ll likely find yourself imbued with magic powers, like my wife...
3 tags
And Now for Something Completely Different
After our trip through the Selous, the driving about the Ruaha that came before it, and dusty Arusha, and the mud and jungle of Mahale, it was time to recover from our vacation. From 5am wake-up calls to afternoons out in the bright sun and hundred-degree heat and hours spent peering into the foliage for a moment’s sight of a brightly-colored bird or a rare, stalking predator, we were tired...
3 tags
These Are My Teeth!
We arrived at the Selous right ahead of a storm, just as we had at Ruaha. We could feel it too: as our unpressurized Caravan made its landing turn, hot, humid, close air burst through the ventilation system, filling the cabin with languor and the promise of rain. Again, just as at Ruaha, the sun was shining and the sky clear as we landed, but there was a vast, dark cloud in the corner of the sky,...
The Most Into Poo I've Ever Been in My Life
I never expected I would care about dung beetles, or that I would even see them on this safari: but, apparently, get a bunch of scarab beetles rolling around and then burying their very own balls of elephant dung, and I can’t hold myself back. They’re just such hard-working little buggers, fighting for their dung, rolling it into a ball, climbing to the top every once in a while to...
“‘For instance,’ [Meryl Streep] says, forking at a bread-crumbed oyster, ‘we are...”
– “Meryl Streep: Force of Nature,” Vogue (via thatluciegirl)
I just read this to Chris and started crying.
(via meganwest)
How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body - NYTimes.com →
(via Instapaper)
December 2011
11 posts
3 tags
Arusha, I Can't Quit You
I’m writing this blog entry on my third flight out of Arusha — we keep leaving, but we can’t seem to stay away. Even after yesterday, after we drove out of there.
We overnighted in Arusha after leaving the Mahale Mountains, the easiest convenient flight being, of course, to the city we can’t leave. The next day, we drove out in a big Toyota Land Cruiser under the watchful...
3 tags
Look at That, it's Raining in the Congo
Lake Tanganyika is the second-longest freshwater lake in the world, and contains 17% of the world’s fresh water — or so it said in the brochure in our resort, the Nkungwe Lodge in the Mahale Mountains. Easy-to-believe statistics, given that the lake stretched almost as far as the eye could see in all directions, a deep, clear blue to rival any Caribbean or South Pacific ocean. I say...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-12-18) →
Miles Davis (12)
Son Volt (8)
Kathleen Edwards (7)
John Coltrane (4)
Modern Jazz Quartet (4)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
3 tags
Mount Surprise
The veranadah we enjoyed our first Tanzanian beers on was at the Moivaro Lodge, a lovely getaway in the midst of a coffee plantation just outside Arusha. (It sounds more antebellum than it actually is). This quiet, beautifully landscaped place seems more a stopover for most of its guests than anything else, some heading to summit Mt. Kilimanjaro, some heading to the Northern or Western safari...
3 tags
30 Hours
Habati from Africa! At least, I think that’s the word. It’s kind of hard to tell details like “what’s the language” and “where am I?” and “what time is it?” after a flight halfway around the world.See, we left the house at 2:30pm and then finally arrived at our destination at 9:30am two days later. Taking into account time change fun, that...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-12-11) →
Buddy Miller (2)
Leroy Justice (1)
Whiskeytown (1)
Blue Rodeo (1)
Alejandro Escovedo (1)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-12-4) →
John Eddie (1)
Gillian Welch (1)
Drag The River (1)
The Yarrows (1)
Carrie Underwood (1)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
WIL WHEATON dot TUMBLR: Cumberland County,North... →
A century ago, bully breeds were considered the quintessential American dog. Even 50 years ago, they were considered the ideal breed to have watch over your baby. What happened between now and then? Nothing with the bloodline, much with the owners. Sadly, the owners don’t pay.
wilwheaton:
This is reblogged from Neil Gaiman. I can’t do a native reblog because it was a question post, so...
November 2011
20 posts
4 tags
A Year to be Thankful For
OK, I’ll admit, I thought that last year was a big one to be thankful for, but so far 2011’s been the big one!
I’m thankful for my beautiful wife, of course, who makes me happier every day; concomitantly, I’m thankful that I seem to be doing a good job making her happy too!
I’m thankful for the furry family, too, with Juniorbird, my best friend since 1998,...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-11-13) →
Alison Krauss & Union Station (3)
Whiskeytown (2)
Dixie Chicks (2)
Alison Krauss & Gillian Welch (1)
Patty Griffin (1)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
1 tag
Recursive Punning
Once again this year, I’m going to participate in Movember to raise money for men’s health. That means that — wife willing — I’ll be growing a mustache and looking like an idiot. This also means that:
I’m taking suggestions of which mustache style I should attempt to sport
I’ll be trying to use the story of Movember to “move” you to...
1 tag
Just Call Me the Battleship Maine
I don’t think I’ve ever started a war in my dreams before… but there’s always a first. See, me and my friends, while we were just ten or eleven or maybe thirteen, our parents all knew each other from working with Oliver North during the ’80s, so you know that they were experts in all things clandestine; with pops like that, imagine what our backyard cap gun fights were...
3 tags
Trying Out Vim; or, When the Geek Says "Get Off My...
There seems to be an age that people reach at which getting a new computer stops inspiring us to paroxysms of joy and starts making us cranky that things aren’t all set up just the same as they used to be. I fear I’ve reached that stage.
What’s the Tech Term for ‘Ossuary’?
I like working on Web things. Working on Web things means writing code. Geeks like me write...
October 2011
10 posts
1 tag
Working For the Weekend
Back during the dot-com days — or, as about half of my new co-workers call it, “when I was in High School” — I thought I’d be a product manager at a technology company. I worked at a great little start-up where I was given tons of freedom to do cool things for our clients, with technology we were just beginning to evolve. My job was to be a project manager, and I...
1 tag
LRWhy?
In the abstract, I’m all for going against the Lord’s Resistance Army; they seem to be really, really bad people who should be dead or maybe in prison.
But, in reality, I’m not sure what we hope to achieve by getting involved in there. It’s not that we can’t kill LRA members; it’s that the Ugandans already did a good job of that, destroying their military...
