(The Globe)   I joined the Army yesterday.   Not that one. Not that I don’t respect the Green Machine, the original one, but my time for going to the field in anything other than a Holiday Inn Express is long past.   I have been puzzling about what to do- something I could do. […]

  (The Solar Disc, unblemished. US Naval Research Laboratory photo) Bless the Navy, both ours and that of the Queen, and throw in Portugal and Spain’s as well, since they were the first of the great Navigators.   All of them looked to the sky for portents of what would befall their frail vessels on […]

(M-80 Explosive Holiday Commemoration Device) It is later than usual here this morning, or better said, the earth is spinning along just fine and I am trying to mount it at about three quarters-speed and not succeeding that well.   That is a function of the emerging social whirl here at Big Pink, which features […]

(See below for “Time Rain” pyrotechnics blossom, an effect created by large, slow-burning stars that leave a trail of large glittering sparks behind and make a very loud sizzling noise. Produces “Oohs” and “ahs” on the National Mall. Show by Pyro Spectaculars, Inc., of San Francisco, CA.) It is quiet in Arlington, except for the […]

I got two increasingly belligerent calls from the Fifth Floor- Big Pink’s party central, and that is what determined how the evening was going to go. I had no idea it would be such a thriller.   I was exhausted and a little pissed off. I rose before the crack of dawn to write catalog […]

God, I love the summer. I wish I was spending more time in it and less writing cheery business fantasy. There are several mysteries in progress, and they need examination. Inquiring minds want to know.   I’ll get off the whole weather thing presently, but you have to admit, with el Nino happening again and […]

(Super Center at Brandy Station)   They say that the abuse of crystal methamphetamine steals your youth and rots your teeth. I had not been in a WalMart in years, so I had no reason to think about it prior to the break in the late afternoon between the visit of the installers, who were […]

  (Climate History)   ‘The surprising result of these long-range predictions is a rapid decline in solar activity, starting with cycle #24. If this trend continues, we may see the Sun heading towards a Maunder-type of solar activity minimum – an extensive period of reduced levels of solar activity.’ – K.H.Schatten and W.K.Tobiska, 34th Solar […]

  (A sequined Glove)   The news spread through Twitter and all the broadcast media late yesterday, and it reverberated in the halls of Big Pink with the speed of electrons. The nerve center is the concierge desk, and the Queen of all information is the Day Lady, Rhonda.   She has been down there […]

(Phases of the Moon)     “THE wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,     The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,     The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,     And the highwayman came riding—                       Riding—riding—     The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.”                                                 – Alfred Noyes […]