Bad Gas I was driving back from the National Lab tucked into the hills above the campus of the University of California at Berkeley. The rain had passed and the clouds had raised and the light was soft. Berzerkeley, we used to call it, because of the daily rioting over People’s Park, and the alliance of […]

Bay Bridge I’m looking out the window of the 21st floor of the Oakland Marriott. It is Cinco de Mayo, and election day in Britain, and they have rounded up another top al Qaida operative. I am far behind the world that lives in Greenwich Mean Time, or Eastern Standard, for that matter. All things […]

Minutemen It is curious, I thought, that this California mission town with its bright sunshine and sweet cool air, is so tied to Boston. Driving over to the Convention Center for the Conference Center on The Great America Parkway, I passed streets named in honor of early patriots Sam Adams and Patrick Henry, and battles […]

Santa Clara At the moment, I am, if not bright eyed and bushy tailed, at least unpacked and connected to the internet in Santa Clara, California, at an anonymous Marriott hotel just five long blocks from the Convention Center where I have to be at eight o’clock. It is just past two AM local time, […]

May Day The call-sign “May Day” is an international distress signal. I know why. I’m was in a Fairfield Inn off exit 28 of the PA Turnpike, last night, since I would have died if I kept driving. College Commencement yesterday morning in Ann Arbor; the day before was Petoskey, Michigan, fixing my Mom’s computer, and the day […]

Lunch In Boston I got up before it is human to do so to get to Boston. The Conference and the taxi were waiting, the phone ringing as I was just buckling my belt. Too soon. I was going to forget something. The Conference could wait, since I could fudge my arrival if necessary. What […]

Combat Zone I didn’t think of it as I walked. It is a grand town, and construction is everywhere. There are people on the streets and cranes thrusting up all around. The old city is still there, at least some of it, and looking at it kept my mind off the pain in my knees radiated […]

Gallipoli It is ANZAC day, ninety years precisely since they waded up on the shore at Gallipoli. Forgive me if I drift a little in my thoughts. I need to travel this week, and the next, and I think back to other trips and other destinations. I have approached Australia from west and east, from the […]

Catchy Tunes Young Joseph Ratzinger, now the Holy Father, would have sung the Horst Wessel Leid, just like the other kids. Perhaps he did it unwillingly, but someone would have noticed if he did not and reported him. The old Brownshirt Anthem to the punk to died in the street fighting other punks was appended to […]

Good News, Bad News It is a good news, bad news morning. I am up too early, a function of going to bed the same way. But it is raining, and will rain all day, which means there will be time for napping. So there is an upside to this time of creativity, in that […]