(I took the header picture of a Common Loon resting on a pond in Utah on its way north in June of 2015. It was in transition from winter to summer plumage.)

Translate - I dare you. Then make a comment on the funny errors the translator made.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Typecast: by the rivers of Babylon

I have to post something because this is a blog. So here's what I typed today motivated by my chronic bleeding heart liberal Psalm 137 outrage.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Typecast: the best days of our lives


Of course, thinking about shorter chunks of time than a year, I have to say I'm enjoying my life quite a bit right now. When my daughter was six months old I thought: "these last three months have been a lot of fun." So far, the fun time has just kept stretching out as she keeps growing. This last summer had some high points -- like most of July -- and some other times when a good family life was a balance against other things being dismal.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Quillcast: "politics"

Last night I carved myself a new quill pen, using the small blade of my new Swiss Army Knife. The result is rather satisfactory. I tested it by writing a short, rather pessimistic rumination on workplace "politics," after reflecting on the many instances thereof that I've witnessed in my few working years.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Pencast: Dungeon Days Revisited

As I wrote in a previous post, I used to be heavily into fantasy role-playing games, or I used to want to be heavily into them. I spent a lot of time making up characters who never saw any action and wishing I could stay away from home -- or awake -- longer on the occasions that I actually did get to play with others.

Recently I've been thinking more about this pastime from my youth. I rediscovered this brilliant 1990s comedy sketch the other day, and I've been looking through some of the few old rule books that I've kept. Recently my wife and I were shopping at the local used bookstore and picked up Wizards of the Coast's Wheel of Time RPG. Maybe I just don't like to face the fact that I'm twice as old as I was when I started playing this stuff, but I've found myself wishing again for a group of like-minded nerds to trot out my new character ideas with.

Amongst all of my old gaming stuff I found a comic strip I drew on notebook paper while I was in high school. I think I must have been 16, maybe 17 when I drew it. I meant to draw more but never got around to it. (There were other comic strips that I started and then abandoned as well. Some of them had potential but my drawing technique, such as it was, has decayed over time.)

So without further ado, here it is.


Friday, August 7, 2009

Saturday, July 18, 2009

This blog is not defunct

I languish without a typewriter, summer advances closer to its end.
In a home far from my own I have bent metal and sanded wood, and painted a wall.
I have chatted with teenagers about pop music and conversed with a Bulgarian in Spanish over medieval manuscripts.
Trying to maintain my faith in the rightness of the difficult and fragile,
my conviction of the wrongness of arbitrary power.
Some days it's easier than others.
The Snake River is treacherous but its valley is wide and welcoming,
gorgeous in its bounty after a wet spring.
The raspberries are on, and people sell Utah cherries and apricots by the roadside.
But living here permanently seems impossible for the forseeable future.
My soul cannot survive long, I fear, without a garden of my own.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Laggard typecast: 25 things

So, after the "25 things about me" sensation has swept the nation, I finally wrote one up.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Typecast: Wilfred Owen


SONNET

On Seeing a Piece of Our Heavy Artillery Brought into Action

Be slowly lifted up, thou long black arm,
Great Gun towering towards Heaven, about to curse;
Sway steep against them, and for years rehearse
Huge imprecations like a blasting charm!
Reach at that Arrogance which needs thy harm,
And beat it down before its sins grow worse.
Spend our resentment, cannon, -- yea, disburse
Our gold in shapes of flame, our breaths in storm.

Yet, for men's sakes whom thy vast malison
Must wither innocent of enmity,
Be not withdrawn, dark arm, thy spoilure done,
Safe to the bosom of our prosperity.
But when thy spell be cast complete and whole,
May God curse thee, and cut thee from our soul!




You can read more Wilfred Owen poetry here.

Friday, January 30, 2009

Monday, January 5, 2009

A video of our little girl

I'll get a nice typecast going in a few days, but for now: