We are going to have a roller-coaster winter. They are talking about another Polar Vortex (there is apparently a difference from the usual Alberta Clipper) coming to town by next weekend. It may not be as severe as the last one, but it will bring the National Capital Region snow and more chaos. I mean, […]

Mister Mxyzptlk: (/mɪksˈjɛzpɪtlɪk/ US dict: mĭks·yĕz′·pĭt·lĭk or /mɪksˈjɛzpɪtəlɪk/ US dict: mĭks·yĕz′·pĭt·l·ĭk), Backwards, Klptzyxm (kil-pit-ZEE-zim /kɨlpɨtˈziːzɨm/) – Wikipedia The lights at Refuge Farm flickered briefly as I breathed the last letter of my name, spelled backwards. “V,” I said, and the great room seemed to swell and gain color and then diminish and snap back into […]

Gentle Readers, Before we get started, the wonderful author Val Ormand is reprising some old Socotra bits from the mini-series “Boondoggle” on her web site: http://believinginhorses.com/blog/2014/01/09/boondoggle  Check that for diversion, and check her books and activities. She is someone special! Vic I confess that as jaded as I have been about the current state of […]

I bundled up for the trip down to the lobby at Big Pink, hoping to see Rhonda, the generous den mother to the 700 of us who live in this large dusty mauve building. Leo the Engineer was at the desk, and periodically speaking in Spanglish on the walky-talky mode on his phone. I greeted […]

(The complete USCG Ice Breaker inventory- both of them together at McMurdo Sound in Antartica). Goodness, there is a lot to consider this morning. It is exactly fifty years since Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty, and I was amazed to hear his declaration on NPR this morning. I forget how creepie that guy was. […]

(Vic meets the Colonel in Yokosuka, 1980, Larry Jensen, RIP, and lovely Paula Brown, and a pensive Paula in watchcap.) So, Florida State apparently beat Auburn in the last seconds. That would have been news to me last night, but my head was lolling in its customary place and when my eyes drifted shut, the […]

(Mars, the planet an average 140 million miles further from the sun than Earth, had the same temperature as Canada this week. Photo: Google Images). I fell asleep in the brown chair after watching Pacific Rim, a blockbuster special effects extravaganza re-imagining the Godzilla monster flicks of our childhood into something edgy and unsettling. I […]

The ice and biting wind kept me pinned down in the apartment all day- it is a pleasant place. I can simulate work by toggling periodically over to the company email, and on the whole, it is a pleasant way to pass a day that would otherwise feature slipping around, perhaps a fall or two, […]

 It is bitterly cold and blowing here. It started late in the afternoon, the front whipping its way toward Boston, but cuffing us with an icy sleeve as it went by. Rain at first, rain with an edge, and then it turned to fluffy flakes and then to crunchy heavy snow. I tramped over […]

(The Army-Navy Club on Farragut Square in downtown DC. An easy walk from the former Department of War, State and the Navy, it is a class act. The photo shows the place in the 1930s.) I was getting used to the idea of “2014,” rolling it around on my tongue, and decided I liked it […]