(The Bridge at Broad Run) It is finally here, the white stuff. Out of sight, out of mind for nearly a year, but it is alling heavy in wet sheets outside the windows of the little farmhouse. There is a travel advisory but I have to travel anyway. I am at the farm, since there […]

(Major General J.E.B. Stuart, CSA) Sic transit Gloria mundi. “Thus passes the glory of the world,” is the formal Latin translation, but it is subject to interpretation by people who know more than just what the words say, strung out in a line.   It can also be read, contextually, as “Worldly things are fleeting,” […]

(L-R, Top Science Advisor John Holdren, NOAA Chief Jane Lubchenco and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) ) There isn’t  a lot that passes for glory these days. Maybe we know too much about one another, and the only privacy we will ever get is in the grave.   That was one of the things we covered […]

  My son was just leaving as the President was coming on. I had cooked frantically when I got home to have a hot meal for him, and enough left-overs to take away for another one, deeper in the week.   This one was one of four chicken thighs with a faux Caribbean rub, salad, […]

(West Footing of the former Buckland Bridge on the Warrenton Turnpike) Predictably, I got sidetracked again, oh well. I meant to go down to Old Town and light up a couple Luckies in the sanctity of the last night that we will be permitted to smoke a cigarette in a bar in Virginia.   It’s […]

(The Hockey Stick Graphic)   I was determined to take all of Sunday and simply do nothing. I didn’t get far on that front. I thought about going skating over at the Kettler Ice Arena, the training complex for the Washington Capitals perched on top of the Ballston parking structure.   The team allows the […]

(Stuart’s HQ, then Custer’s, then Stuart’s, again.) I wound have to chalk this holiday up as marginal. Not bad, but it sort of sucked. I got caught up captive so one of those proposal drills yesterday, and working on Friday to conserve vacation time against the coming visit to reinforce the folks over Christmas.   […]

(S&W Model 28) I can’t get around the coincidence of the model of the Smith and Wesson hand-cannon and the day, so we will have to go with it and get over it. Orion the Hunter is hovering to the west, over the green tarp covering the pool at Big Pink, and the wind is […]

(Trading tables at the Gun Show)   Merlin is the man at Rabbit Ridge Enterprises. He is a vast presence in an orange t-shirt with eyes set deep in his plump cheeks and no neck at all between his head and broad beefy shoulders. He has a businesslike approach to the constitution. His enterprise happens […]

I was out on the balcony, watching the fog come in, a whiskey in one hand and the iPod firmly screwed into my ears when it occurred to me I ought to get out the ingredients for everything to fix a very minimalist Thanksgiving dinner.   Turkey breast, check, in the oven on low heat. […]