2018 was a tough, tough, tough year for the country, due to the evil President, and a tough year for me. It was a year of separations. To start the year, on January 1, Greg yelled at me for the last time and moved away in the spring to Berlin …
Instead of spending Christmas in wintry Wellesley with my parents at the house where I was born, I usually travel farflung with my brother Ray and friends Adriene, Lee, and now Ruben. This year’s trip planning foundered in the fall on the rocks of their inertia, my unemployment, and overall …
The rains wash away a slow Sunday afternoon. I cram a backpack full of shorts and underwear for a beach holiday. I depart this evening on an overnight flight to Florida and then on to Cuba tomorrow morning for ten days. Once again, I’m traveling for the Christmas holiday with …
I cook my last meals before departing in a few days for Cuba. I finish reading Our Man in Havana and return the book to the library. I wrap up an xBee-communication project. I cross items off lists and throw lists away. I’m finishing my unexpected six-months away from work. …
Out of wood slats, vinyl tubing connectors, staples, plastic sheets, zipties, and LEDs, I have built a hemisphere, six-feet in diameter and three-feet tall. I worried that the wood structure would be too floppy. The sphere does flex into a range of lumpy egg shapes, but it is strong enough. …
I wrote recently that for this time off I regret not traveling exotically to far off lands. I squandered the rare opportunity to roam the Sahara or climb the Steppes for months. Likewise, closer to home I thought now would be the time to PAAAAARTAY. 4am every night. Sunrises. Strippers …
Wednesday, just after lunch, I leave the house with one bag and lots of questions. I hop three forms of transportation – BART to Millbrae, Caltrain to Mountain View, and Lightrail to Borregas Ave – to wander to Jay’s work at dystopian Google. He kindly loans me his car that …
I depart after lunch for silence. I booked tonight and tomorrow night a small cabin at the Vajrapani Retreat Center in the Santa Cruz Mountains. For about 30 hours, I’ll sit, stretch, meditate, walk, eat, and sit some more. No roaring, however, as this is a silent and solitary retreat. …
I can’t leave well enough alone. I finished last week the four Snowflakes, well, mostly finished, as I’m still working on their xBee communication, but their hardware is done. So I start already my next project: the Spheres. About two years ago, a twisted mass of bent plastic, staples, and …
“Ça Suffit,” as the French say, either politely muttered “that’s enough” when offered quantities, or yelled “Enough!” at kids to stop fidgeting. “Ça Suffit,” I say after last weekend. This is enough. My apartment, San Francisco, my hobbies, my friends, my activities, my goals, my struggles, my wanders, these are …