Chalk this one up under “events I did not expect”: Weed, California has an annual Steampunk Festival, and it returns this year on May 21-22. Yep, the same town that hosts an annual 420 Festival (on April 20, naturally) somehow has a festival celebrating steampunk. Because of course it does. Weed has about 2,900 people,… Continue reading There’s a Steampunk Festival in Weed, CA
Pandemic life
You know, up until a year or so ago, reading about the global Spanish flu pandemic from a century ago seemed like so much abstract history, like something that couldn’t possibly happen in this age of modern medicine and advanced technology. So… that happened. I’ve been fortunate; Friday, March 13, 2020 was the last day… Continue reading Pandemic life
If you’re a Trump supporter, you might as well unfriend me now.
Pretty much what that says. I’m done with it. Everything just keeps getting worse; every bad instinct we had, every worst case scenario we predicted about the little dictator occupying the White House has been proven true—and then some. The Oval Office is occupied by a racist, anti-Semitic, illiterate, ignorant, criminal, compromised, fascist, rapey pedophile… Continue reading If you’re a Trump supporter, you might as well unfriend me now.
Silo
The end of the Middle Ages
![The Fall of Constantinople, By anonymus (Sotheby's) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://i0.wp.com/www.chuggnutt.com/images/fall-of-constantinople.jpg?fit=1568%2C1080&ssl=1)
Today, May 29, is the anniversary of the end of the Middle Ages. I know, I wouldn’t have thought you could pinpoint a time period like that so precisely, but this reasoning makes sense: On this day [in 1453] the city of Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Empire after being under siege for almost two… Continue reading The end of the Middle Ages
No.
With the inauguration making it official, and “real,” I had to write something. Right now we are in the midst of the strangest, most ridiculous moments in United States history that I’ve experienced in my lifetime—and, some say, maybe ever. I don’t know about “ever” but it certainly feels unprecedented. Perhaps people living through the… Continue reading No.
Moon and Mountains
Moon and mountains from the Old Mill District.
Mountains
Three Sisters and Broken Top.
My Douglas Adams year
A few weeks ago I turned 42, which prompted my friend Paul to declare I was entering my “Douglas Adams year.” (Though somewhat worryingly, one of his other analogy-years was 33, because that’s how old John Belushi and Chris Farley were when they died… Douglas Adams died at age 49. Hmmmmm.) 2014 was an eventful year,… Continue reading My Douglas Adams year
Shakespeare turned 450 years old today
I don’t quite know how I’d missed this until the latter half of the day—I’m actually surprised Google didn’t do a doodle on this today—but William Shakespeare was born 450 years ago today (April 23). (Okay, to be fair, nobody actually knows for sure that Shakespeare was born on April 23; however he was baptized… Continue reading Shakespeare turned 450 years old today