Just over ten generations ago this fellow arrived on the east coast a widower and settled in the Virginia colony sometime in the mid 1600s. Born in 1621, he is the oldest known ancestor in my family tree to have lived and died on this continent. Considered a foremost man of his time a few decades later, he bought and sold upwards of 12,000 acres where he grew tobacco, owned slaves, and had several indentured servants at his beck and call. He lived well, if not in opulence, an

As a teenager I fully expected that by this time of life I would own and utilize a personal aircraft levitated and propelled by an antigravity drive which would be much smarter than I am. An intelligent personal aircraft specifically attuned to my needs and desires, fully equipped to be capable of always location tending one minute (or less) from wherever I might be, ready at any moment to pick me up and rapidly transport me to wherever I wanted to go to next. A sleek, quiet,

Tracking the progress of Project 2025 goals is revealing. By any measure, it clearly indicates its proponents are chronically corporophagic, choosing to defecate down their own throats. Their obsessive tendancy to consume their own feces would be puzzling if I had not learned at an early age that there are indeed a lot of people out there with a developed taste for it. I guess this is not an entirely bad trait considering how corporphagia is a necessary part of natural proces

This storm named Fern is sparking childhood memories, recalling how a spate of severe winter weather while traveling forced us into the nearest roadside diner where it was warmer. Where cigarette smoking was the fav habit of just about everyone, except hapless children. Children forced to breathe secondhand smoke, with nowhere to flee to avoid the foul space. Yeah, those were the good old days before laws were passed banning such thoughtlessness. I don't miss breathing bad ai

Halfway expecting to be munched on while surf kayaking every weekend in 1994, I told myself I wouldn't hold it against any shark that might manage to strike while I was in the water. I was, afterall, encroaching in its natural environment, and doing so unwisely. I deserved whatever nature threw at me for being so bold. And evolution has made sharks as badass as they come, while by comparison I was a soft, easy meal bobbing along on the surf. I was surely a cringeworthy sight

Since living in Louisiana when hurricane Camille struck the gulf coast and seeing them for the first time, then writing about them in Abbeville Pearls , I've wanted a way to enter a crawdad chimney and go down into its lair to see its builder sheltering from the storm there. Another biophilic urge I can't really explain or even guess at origins of, its intriguing anyway. Maybe it's time to get a 3D printer and Raspberry Pi components to try to build one myself.

I used to do a lot of canoeing in Texas. On several stretches of the Brazos River's flat waters... ...through foreboding canyons of the Rio Grande where it skirted Big Bend National Park ... ...in verdant swamplands of Gus Engling Wildlife Management Area where alligators sunned. Lots of places remain to be canoed. No rush. Sometime within the next 30 years, the goal (beyond enjoyment of the natural experience) being to finally see something astonishing in the sky. Something

This was the first album I purchased. Bought it and the accompanying instruction book at the same time at a local music store after Dad brought a 5-string banjo home one evening. I think he saw my interest sparked by the likes of Earl Scruggs, Roy Clark, and Larry McNeely performing on TV variety shows at night after supper. He paid more attention to his childrens' interests than I thought at the time, always aware of what might hold our attention for extended periods of time

Reading and rereading a recently published article in the online Harvard Business Review's Generative AI category titled Why AI Boosts Creativity for some Employees but Not Others by Jackson G. Lu, Shuana Sun, Zhuyl Angelina, Maw-Der Foo and Jing Zhou, I finally groked from the article that it boiled down to something called Metacognition. It set me to wondering if I was exercising any powers of metacognition leveraging AI the way I find myself doing more and more these days

Late one frigid winter night in 1980 I was driving west to New Mexico on a lark. I just wanted to get away from big cities for a while and roam about alone on some vast, remote wilderness area where no one else would be aside from some rare wildlife I hoped to encounter there. I had set sights on the Grulla National Wildlife Refuge near Portales, where I once visited my cousins about a decade earlier in life. So after a stop at home in a newly built apartment for a quick meal

It's always soothing to sense sunlight reflected off of a full Moon, especially through clouds. Why isn't important.

Before graduating from college, I was hired by a large water district authority to convert paper cartography and drilled well data into digital maps and database for rapid reference of well location and condition prior to a new reservoir being filled, and after for any future remediation work a well might require. The end product allowed reservoir managers to know what wells needed work to be completely sealed before being inundated, and where wells were in case any of them s

Influencers crack me up and make me want to vomit at the same time. At four years old I became aware of something called the communist threat and began absorbing information about their perceived plans to dominate the world. None of it rattled me much because by then Joseph McCarthy's downfall was history and discussions overheard from adults about the bullshit wildly slung by that infamous "influencer" convinced me the commies were not everywhere doing everything they could

After starting my own business, I witnessed an incident of professional con artistry in state government IT industry which I subsequently reported to as many authorities as I could. This con job was simple and effective: promise a state agency ERP perfection and deliver zero point shit. The state auditor investigated and deemed the incident a case of grime, rather than crime. I reponded with a protest that it was indeed a crime, to no avail. The culprit of this crime deemed g

I began playing hooky at age thirteen. Public school had never held any charm for me, and it certainly wasn't where any actual learning ever happened. Learning happened out in the world away from little desks in stuffy classrooms where teachers went through government mandated motions of educating youngsters while only managing to indoctrinate some of us. I could never conform enough to be a good little student, so as soon as my family was living in a place where there was so

Driving aimlessly across rural Louisiana occasionally led to delightfully cool sights and places. Such places didn't do huge things to be cool. No destructive ripping out of cypress forest for oppulent edifice construction; no garish, flashing advertisements visible miles away; no long, wide parking lots of overheating asphalt laid down over once verdant ground. Just simple, unadorned beauty of functional presence set in sweet harmony with environment. Just cool.

Having seen Disney's movie The Sword In The Stone at age seven, and read much of the Lancelot-Grail Cycle by age ten, I recognized hypocrisy when it raised its ugly head. The teachers who decided to target me for abuse at Mark Twain Elementary School in Duncan, Oklahoma for not professing belief in a supreme being to my classmates soundly demonstrated that black alchemy of ignorance-driven hatred all too well. Two of them, especially, became symbols of all I never wanted to

When I was ten years old, a trio of self-righteous teachers at Mark Twain Elementary in Duncan, Oklahoma decided I was fair game for mental and phsyical assault after frankly telling my classmates that I did not believe in a supreme being when they frankly pressed me about it. These three hateful shrews used every trick they could come up with to try to break me, to no avail, as is obvious by my continuing lack of belief to this very day. That is not to say I wasn't shaken by

Seeking a reason for being hasn't ever concerned me. Why I am just isn't important as long as I am, and as long as I'm able to continue enhancing my state of being through learning experiences. If a time comes that I'm unable to learn something new then living will be pointless and I will no longer want to exist. And the coolest thing about this existance is how much I do not know and still have opportunity to learn, a veritable infinity of learning awaits. And being a reason