My Brain Hurts

I’ve read that if you really want to stave off dementia, you should aim to learn something totally knew — like a language or an unfamiliar technology. Apparently, it actually causes your brain to grow. I’m here to say the theory is absolutely true at least based on just my second class in my Photography course. (See an earlier post about it here.) After...

Why I’m Being Kind to Animals, Pla...

What if we, the entire human race, were gone. I mean gone in an instant. Zapped. All of us. What would happen to Earth? That’s the premise of a fascinating book I just got, The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. At least it was a fascinating book judging by the dustcover and the first ten pages. That’s about all I had time to read before my friend Rob, conspiracy theorist...

School DAZE

Now that I’m transitioning to farmerhood, but still living a mostly urban life, I’ve got more time for things I’ve been meaning to do for years. Like take some college courses. So today, I found myself blasting out the door before 8:30 rushing to be on time to the first day of class: Beginning Photography. Even before I entered the class, I had the sinking suspicion...

Rediscovering Gram Parsons

Thirty five years after Gram Parsons died, I’m just getting around to discovering him. Which is amazing since I’ve long loved country-tinged rock from the LA Country Rock sound (I guess best typified by The Eagles) to alt.country (think K.D. Lang’s Absolute Torch and Twang) which may not have come into existence without his charismatic influence. At a time when, as...

We’re Drowning Here!

Three major storms in a row, one with hurricane force wind gusts, have left us absolutely water- logged. Trees are down all over San Francisco and thousands are still without power. Seems it was even worse up in Lake County, just above Napa County, where my mother lives. The whole town of Middletown lost power. But there was one place that had banks of generators and was open for...