Category: Travel

A stray inspiration from Autumn last week turned into a full-fledged planned exodus: The Pencils are going to I*eland. That is, both Iceland and Ireland (and also France (and also the UK (well, me at least (David is going back to the US earlier than I am)))).

We are going in late May. The prices on non-stop Icelandair flights out of Seattle seem too good to be true. David’s round-trip ticket was $553.67. Mine was costly enough that I’m embarrassed to disclose the total: I’m flying first class.

Photo by Cristiano Corsini

During a recent trip to central California I learned several key life lessons: Nissan Versas are staggeringly dull, things like to fall over when blown on with 60MPH winds, Hoizon’s CRJ-700s can land in essentially zero visibility, and the OLCC will let you drink awfully early at the PDX airport as long as you can cough up a boarding pass.

What some are terming the “storm of the century” has made landfall on the Central Coast of California. Yesterday it was rainy and moody out in wine country, but today it is bucketing. We have to drive five hours to Sacramento shortly. I am hoping this will be an adventure and not just grief!

I wrote this on Friday in Vancouver. – I am having a problem with displacement. To leave one city and arrive in the middle of another without preface or enough time lapsed for my softened mind to come to equilibrium–this is displacement. Like a hangover it stays with me longer than I would ever want; [...]

There are many, many ways to get dead here. The most obvious are gravity-assisted: sudden pits, false floors, collapsing beams. But there are also many serrated edges, rusty pointed pipes that reek of lockjaw and gangrene; ragged glass and naked edges of sheet metal. It is no wonder Baker County has stenciled DANGER PELIGRO on [...]

Where there’s not much Merlot anymore and the grapes often grow on trees. Thursday: My mobile phone rang and it was Cloud Four’s retirement-handling investment managers, again, calling to prompt me to continue on the apparently endless task of moving our company’s SimpleIRA plan away from the horror that is ADP. “Can’t talk,” I said, [...]

Subsumed in last week’s flurry of dumb health crap was a hidden gem: the weekend right before my surprise colonoscopy was marked by another victory in my steps toward being a comfortable flyer. A sudden opportunity presented itself on Friday–tickets to the Seattle Sounders/Chelsea FC game that Christie had–so I immediately bought an early-morning commuter [...]

There is something like a coup in my insides, pouncing only when unexpected and I have blearily wiped it from my recollection; only when I am blithe and reporting “I feel fine now, it’s gone now” does everything in my geographical center suddenly grind to a halt and then there is squeezing almost like my [...]

Satellite views like this one are what make conspiracy folks and lovers of the mysterious have “squee” moments. View Larger Map In Oregon’s remote Christmas Valley, coming upon this military installation of debated purpose is certainly eerie. The Internetty consensus is that the establishment has something to do with Over-the-Horizon radar or some such–at least [...]

The first thing in my life that I both recall and can put a date to are two vignettes from May of 1980. One is scouring a closet with my mother for a red bandanna to tie around my face, the other is a dim, gray moment-memory of an ashen street scene. So, I can [...]