Tag: personal
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What is a library?
I am far from the first to ask this question in an increasingly-electronic age, and I am sure that my answer will be far from unique. But my wife and I have batted the question around a couple of times and I wanted to get my thoughts down. The proximate cause of our discussion was…
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Alternate History: The Speech that Wasn’t
In preparing my second Convocation speech, I spent most of the summer at a loss. Once I had changed apartments, I sat down in earnest. Eventually, I ended up jettisoning my original effort and producing the speech as given. But in case you wonder what could have been, below I’ll post the speech I nearly…
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Old nuggets
Anyone checking the frequency of blogging for this site need not be told that I am not a natural diarist. I keep trying to start a regular compilation of my thought but never quite get in the habit. I have a journal I’ve carted from DC to Stanford to Bensalem to Princeton. With my recent…
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Hidden meanings?
I don’t know what this means, but I’ve discovered something weird with the iTunes Music Store. I wanted to find a particular song by Bob Dylan called “Dignity”. But the search box won’t find it for me, instead returning an error: “We could not complete your iTunes store request. The iTunes Store is temporarily unavailable.…
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The Mongrel Dogs in Transit Hell: Airline Insanity
I am currently in LAX International Airport. I’ve been here since 10:30 AM and it is currently 9:00 PM. If you knew my itinerary, you’d see that this is the time listed for boarding Continental Flight 1803, nonstop LAX to Newark/EWR. You can probably guess that I am not actually getting on that plane at…
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The Mongrel Dogs at Sea (11): Solar Sight
I experienced something today that I’ve heard a lot about but never quite believed in: the infamous green flash. I’d read that, sometimes, during sunsets, just at the moment the Sun sinks below the horizon, it flashes green. However, the conditions are hard to meet and the occurrence somewhat rare. Tonight as the Regal Princess…
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The Mongrel Dogs at Sea (10): Managed Disequilibrium
Every night, the crew of the Regal Princess find some live entertainment to put on in the grandiosely-named International Show Lounge. Sometimes it’s in-house, like a crew sing-along. Usually, it’s more like a Vegas revue: Sometimes piano, sometimes comedy, sometimes live performance, sometimes old Broadway standards. For the most part, I’ve avoided this like a…
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The Mongrel Dogs at Sea (7): Maui
Today was the final port of call in Hawai’i, at the port of Lahaina. It was another transfer-by-tender affair. The seas proved a bit rougher this time compared to Kona; I got bumped around a bit. Nothing serious but a little unnerving. Lahaina is a cute little tourist trap. I went on the Atlantis 4…
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The Mongrel Dogs at Sea (6): Security Silliness
I was going to write today about my visit to the USS Arizona and USS Missouri memorials and how moving it was. I suppose I’ll get to that, though maybe not today. Right now I’m going to blog about one of the deepening madnesses of the 21st century, the traveler security checkpoint. Let me say…