The Bunker: Sunday 3rd December, 2023
Friday, December 20, 2024
All credit to the artist(s) 🎨
Longer Reads
This page contains longer, titled posts that I have made to my blog, so as to more easily separate them from other posts that I make here. If you would like to subscribe to the feed for this page, point your RSS reader here.
The Bunker Tuesday 22nd June, 2021
Thursday, December 19, 2024
All credit to the artist(s) 🎨
There is only a partial view of the bunker here, but I didn’t want to lose an opportunity to capture any record of The Bunker that I had.
The Bunker: Tuesday 24th January, 2017
Tuesday, December 17, 2024
All credit to the artist(s) 🎨
Stories from the Road: Hitchhiking Memories
Monday, December 16, 2024
After mentioning some of my hitchhiking experiences in earlier posts, I came across this article by Hilary Bradt in The Guardian. In it she talks about her own hitchhiking experiences. At the age of eighty two she has been hitchhiking every decade of her adult life. While the mind can very easily go to possible dangers of standing beside the road waiting from a lift from a stranger, especially for a loan woman, or for that matter the dangers of picking up a complete stranger, I would argue that such incidents rarely happen.
The Bunker: Monday 13th June, 2016
Monday, December 16, 2024
All credit to the artist(s) 🎨
The Bunker: Thursday 28th April, 2016
Sunday, December 15, 2024
All credit to the artist(s) 🎨
Letting Go of What I Can’t Get To
Saturday, December 14, 2024
I’m talking here of my online life. Over the years I have tried various Read Later services, in the process building up a veritable library of articles that I don’t have time to read right now and so will put aside, neatly categorized, ready to be read later. In time that list gets too long despite my best attempts at working through the articles, so I declare bankruptcy and delete everything or prune the articles, keeping those that I must have and to…read later.
The Bunker: Friday 1st April, 2016
Saturday, December 14, 2024
All credit to the artist(s) 🎨
The Bunker: Sunday 27th December, 2015
Friday, December 13, 2024
All credit to the artist(s) 🎨
The Bunker
Friday, December 13, 2024
On the north shore of the Hawaii island of Maui, in the middle of a field that sits on the edge of cliffs dropping down into the waters of the Pacific Ocean, sits a small rectangular brick building that I call The Bunker. I have no idea of its original usage. Whatever that was, it now sits empty and its walls have become a canvas for unknown artists, at least unknown to me.
The Cow and The Sheep
Thursday, December 12, 2024
Our next door neighbours have a field of probably two acres that is very overgrown. As an example of how overgrown it is, the field is also home to a cow and two sheep. There are times when it is not possible to see them. In fact unless they are walking by the hedge bordering our house, we don’t see them. Initially there were two white sheep and a cow. The sheep stuck together and the cow became a bit of a loner.
App Defaults 2024
Monday, December 9, 2024
Last year around this time, following Hemispheric Views’s podcast, Dual of the Defaults, many people shared their own default apps. Rob Knight curated them.
I was not one of those people, but with this year approaching its end and with some revisiting the status of their defaults from last year, I thought that I would right that wrong. So here are my App Defaults.
The Phantom Ship
Saturday, December 7, 2024
We have been going through a very dry spell on Maui. Being winter, the weather has been lovely to experience. Cool mornings, warm days, clear skies, no wind. There’s a little nip to a breeze and a reminder of the season when I step into the shade. Last night it broke. I woke up in the early hours and through the open windows heard a sound outside that sounded vaguely familiar.
Hanging a Picture
Monday, November 25, 2024
Hanging pictures is not my forte. They usually end up too low, too high or lopsided. That along with the copious, probably visible marks on the wall as I try and measure where to place the picture and too many holes as I make up for afore mentioned mistakes, usually sees my wife going in search of someone else if something needs hanging on a wall in our house. All of this left us in a quandary over a picture that had been lying around our Alcácer house for good while.
Back to Kagi Search
Sunday, November 17, 2024
Well things change. Back in July I shared how after six months using Kagi search, I didn’t feel that the benefits over my previous search engine of choice, DuckDuckGo, were sufficient to justify carrying on paying for Kagi. In the last couple of weeks I have reversed that decision and am now back using Kagi as my primary search engine. Why the flip flopping? DuckDuckGo, for all of its privacy features, felt to me as though more ads were creeping in to the search results.
In Gratitude of an AirTag
Sunday, November 10, 2024
“I have never lost a bag,” I proudly and gratefully told my wife as we shuttled from one terminal to another while in transit at Heathrow Airport. We were on a bus, zigzagging around buildings and aircraft, occasionally disappearing underground. Nearing our destination we passed some open doors giving us a glimpse into the maze of conveyor belts which carry passengers’ luggage to and from the aircraft. I’m like a kid in a candy store at airports.
Process Zero and Music
Saturday, October 19, 2024
Process Zero is a feature of the iPhone camera app Halide. My understanding of Process Zero is that it removes the processing that Apple apply to the photos that iPhones take. The result of Process Zero has been described as more film like, unprocessed. This morning I sat in our living room drinking my coffee, reading the news. Occasionally I would look up and sit silently, looking out of the window at day’s emerging light.
A Day of Extremes
Saturday, October 19, 2024
If there is a movie buff in the family, it is my wife. I enjoy watching a good film, but my wife, loves movies and the movie industry. So when she heard that the Tribeca Film Festival would be holding a two day event in Lisbon while we were in Portugal, it became an immediate fixture on our calendar. Yesterday - Friday, 18th October - was to be the day that we attended.
Crazy Wisdom
Thursday, September 19, 2024
I have found copies of old blog posts on my computer from an earlier incarnation of my website. This one was from I know not when, but will guess around 2010. I have edited the post lightly to provide link references and clarification where appropriate. While in New York last week for Thanksgiving and a host of other family events I visited the wonderful Rubin Museum (which sadly on October 6th, 2024 will close and move to a “global museum model.
The 3,000th Post
Sunday, September 15, 2024
Sometime in the last month I published my 3,000th post to this blog. When I hit publish on this post, it will be the 3,094th. That feels like a big number to me. Perhaps for some, they left that number in the dust a long time ago? But for me this feels like a lot. My blog started back in March of 2014. I have some posts sitting on my computer from an earlier incarnation of the site.
Nature's Friends
Saturday, August 24, 2024
Last night my wife and I took our grandchildren to see the movie My Penguin Friend. Set in Brazil, it is based on the true story of an old man who saved a South American Magellanic penguin that he found washed up on a beach, almost dead and covered in oil. The man cleaned the penguin and nursed him back to health, the penguin only leaving 11 months later when a fresh plumage had grown.
Monday 22nd July, 2024 Newsletter letter
Monday, July 22, 2024
Monday 22nd July, 2024 Dear Friends, I don’t think that I am in the business of looking after dogs anymore, at least not puppies. Please don’t get me wrong, I love dogs. However, my step-daughter who has a young French Bulldog has gone away with her family for a week, and my wife and I are looking after the puppy. He is sweet, but a lot of work and messy. Give him a few more years when he is happy with just a walk, doesn’t eat or drink sending everything everywhere, and doesn’t bring the outside in.
Rethinking Kagi Adoption
Wednesday, July 17, 2024
I’ve been using Kagi Search for about six months now. I am on the lowest tier of the paid plans which allow me 300 searches a month. It turns out that that is quite enough for me. I have never hit that limit. What I don’t know is if I need Kagi? Or perhaps to be more specific, if I should pay for search? I do like Kagi. It generates its own results.
Monday 15th July, 2024 Newsletter letter
Monday, July 15, 2024
Monday 15th July, 2024 Dear Friends, I’ll start this newsletter with a subject that the British are well known for talking about - the weather. Our return to Maui has greeted us with a lot of wet weather. Normally here summer is the dry season and winter is the wet season. However in our little corner of the island the weather has been very wet. That is very welcome if unseasonal.
Speaking in ‘I’ Statements
Sunday, July 14, 2024
I was introduced to the idea of speaking in ‘I’ statements when I first started sitting with a men’s group back in 2015. The idea behind this simple suggestion is that I take responsibility for my feelings. So for example, if a driver cuts in front of me, making me angry, later when I am sharing the story with someone instead of me talking about how stupid and irresponsible the driver was, I say something like, “I felt angry and annoyed when the car cut in front of me.
Testing Title addition from a Shortcut
Friday, July 12, 2024
Testing my Tot to Micro.blog Shortcut to see if it works when I want to add a Title to the post. This post doesn’t need a title…but hey, I can test the title addition if I don’t try and add a title! 😝
Monday 8th July, 2024 Newsletter letter
Monday, July 8, 2024
Monday 8th July, 2024 Dear Friends, Greetings from Maui. I pressed pause on this newsletter last week. I had returned to Maui a handful of days beforehand, and a combination of the travel and jet lag meant that I was exhausted, my body clock was all over the place and I had not shared much on my blog. So for those reasons I decided to give myself a break for a week.
The Story Behind the Photograph: The Taj Mahal
Sunday, July 7, 2024
While going through my mixed up and messily catalogued, that is a very generous term, slides, I came across these two images of the Taj Mahal. I am pretty sure that I have some more, but the state of my slide storage means that I am unlikely to come across them in a hurry, chance discoveries aside. So I scanned in what I had found with my rudimentary equipment and am sharing them here.
The Story Behind the Photograph: The Khunjerab Pass
Friday, July 5, 2024
This story started as an exploration of the speed of travel, but I decided that there was a story within that just about my traversing of the Khunjerab Pass. The Pass is closed for a part of the year simply because of snow, it sits at 4,693 meters (15,397 feet), and for the rest of the year is at the whim of politics. I made the journey in 1989, only a few months after the student protests in Tiananmen Square and the subsequent Chinese government crackdown.
Poop Fright
Tuesday, July 2, 2024
Now there is a click bait title if ever there was one. However I am guessing that what I am going to write about below is something that anyone who has traveled can relate to in some shape or form (please excuse the uncomfortable imagery).I have even heard the Dalai Lama in a public talk make reference to his own personal experience with disturbed bowl movements. I am of course referring to one’s pooping cycle being interrupted and pushed off course by traveling long distances.