Statues and Semaphores It’s said that there were 17,000 statues in Paris that were removed and melted down by the Nazis. I was reading The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway where his main character is driving by the statue of Claude Chappe, the inventor of the semaphore. Semaphores were used for rapid communication across…
Axial Tilt I’m told that 4.5 billion years ago Earth had a collision with a massive object that knocked the planet off kilter and broke off a chunk that became the moon. These two things in turn created the seasons and tides, our filtering system that built and sustains life as we know it. The…
I’m looking at an app showing the best locations right now for viewing the Aurora Borealis. One of the best spots at this moment is 1,063 miles away from where I sit in Labrador. Seeing the Northern Lights has grown to be a priority for me. Something I’d like to do today, or at least…
In Buffalo for work, I debated dancing with an elephant or walking in the footsteps of a ghost. With better planning I could have done both. They say we all have one life, and to make the most of the opportunities you’re presented with. I confess to not taking full advantage of that over the…
If time allows when I visit a town I try to dig into the history of the place and learn something about it. I think of it as dancing with the ghosts of history. And there’s no shortage of history in the northeast. Seneca Falls is famous for two things. As I wrote about in…
The movie It’s a Wonderful Life was set in a town called Bedford Falls. Which in the real world is apparently Seneca Falls, New York. According to folklore Frank Capra spent some time in Seneca Falls the year before the film was made. Looking around, he was inspired him to set the movie there. To…
Dancing with Elephants “One day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve always wanted. Do it now.” – Paulo Coelho Fresh off a trip to Key West and celebrating family time on Thanksgiving, I’m already thinking about the next trip. Frankly, I was thinking about the…
Key West I’ve been to Key West twice in my lifetime, but feel like I know it as well as any city I haven’t lived in. There’s a mystique that surrounds this old town, founded in legendary characters and salty songs. It was once the richest town in America until the Great Depression made it…
Hardtack In the world of refrigeration and preservatives that we live in today, we don’t think a lot about how long our food lasts. Sure, canned food and beef jerky are still a part of our diets, but in general we aren’t thinking about enduring long periods of time without a source of food. When…
World Series Sleep deprivation is common when your team is in the World Series, and the 18 inning marathon that ended at 3:30 this morning set me up for a rough day today. The Red Sox and Dodgers played an epic Game 3, and I was in awe of Nathan Eovaldi pitching in relief for…