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.
Wednesday, October 25, 2023
I returned home yesterday from a couple of days in Lisbon with an unplanned cache - four books. Three of them came from a new discovery, a small bookshop that only carries books in English, Salted Books. The shop has only been open for a month, but apparently they are doing very well. Long may that continue. While I was looking through their selection of books, there was a clattering of bottles going on behind the counter.
Tuesday, October 24, 2023
When to use a VPN and when not to, that is the question? So here I am, sitting in my hotel room in Lisbon. I am on the hotel’s WiFi network. I do not have a VPN fired up. In fact most of the time I do not use a VPN. When I do it is Mullvad. I did use Nord VPN but the longer contracts, it is possible to pay for Mullvad on a monthly basis, did not play well with my ambivalence towards using a VPN.
Wednesday, October 18, 2023
Today I made a pilgrimage to Nazaré, the home in Portugal of big wave surfing, and where the biggest wave ever to be surfed was surfed. Even though I don’t surf, I am surrounded by family and friends who do. I live on Maui where surfers from all over the world come to practice their sport, and just down the road from us is Jaws, the home in Hawaii of big wave surfing.
Thursday, September 14, 2023
It’s Thursday evening. Time for the weekly ritual of putting the trash bins out for their collection on Friday morning. Tomorrow as I am waking up and making the first cup of coffee of the day, I will be greeted by the roar and grind of the truck carrying the trash collectors. It is a part of the weekly ritual marking the ticking of the weekly clock and the approaching week’s end.
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
There’s a quote from the book Danziger’s Travel that has sat with me since I returned from my travels in the early 1990s. Danziger’s words spoke to how I felt on returning to my home country, Britain. I was feeling lost and his words told me that I was not alone. Nick Danziger had returned from an extraordinary journey, traveling through Afghanistan during the war with Russia, crossing the Kunjerab Pass between Pakistan and China before it was open to foreigners, making his way into Tibet when that country as well was closed to foreigners, and after finally arriving in Beijing he found a boat to take him back to the UK.
Friday, September 8, 2023
Wednesday of last week I went back over to Lahaina to spend the day volunteering. It was hot, very hot, but rewarding. As I drove home I was reflecting on where I had been for the day. I had traveled across a good part of Maui in traveling from my home to Lahaina. Let me try and give some perspective… My home is on the north east shore of Maui.
Monday, September 4, 2023
I spent yesterday hiking Haleakalā Crater with a friend. The mountain sits at just over 10,000ft in altitude. The crater that is there today is not a classic volcanic crater, but rather a large erosional valley. It is believed that two valleys, Ko‘olau to the north and Kaupō to the south, expanded into the remains of a much larger volcano, possibly 12,000ft high, creating the crater that is there today.
Friday, September 1, 2023
August 2023 Well after a run of 14 newsletters, the last one being at the end of April this year, I have not sent a newsletter for three months now. April and May found my wife and I in Portugal, based in Alcácer do Sal where we have a town house. At some point during our two month stay I became unwell. Initially it appeared to be hay fever, allergies which I escape here in Hawai’i.
Monday, August 28, 2023
As the result of an email that I received late on Friday night, Saturday saw me out at Lahaina Gateway, volunteering with the relief effort for those effected by the wild fires almost three weeks ago. Volunteers met up in the town of Wailuku, on the north west side of the island, at 7:45am Saturday morning. A group of sixty two volunteers had shown up. About half had been over to Lahaina before, half had not.
Tuesday, August 22, 2023
As Maui cycles through the year, I can feel as the island breathes its way through the ebb and flow of visitors. There are deep intakes of breath as the island fills up during the seasonal holidays, and then exhales as visitors leave and Maui quietens down during those in between times when kids are back at school. Right now it feels as though the island has taken a huge exhale.
Tuesday, July 25, 2023
Yesterday a conversation on Micro.blog brought back memories of an episode early in my travels in 1987. In the Micro.blog conversation I wrote, I remember hitchhiking out of Estes Park many moons ago when I was just starting my travels. From my memory the breaks weren’t working properly on the vehicle that picked me. The driver managed to slow down, but I had to run, throw my pack in and then jump in after it.
Saturday, May 20, 2023
There is a remote road on the far west side of the Brecon Beacons National Park in South Wales. Sealed but single tracked, with an occasional passing place. You are unlikely to see anyone there unless they are out hiking those barren hills. On a cold, wet day, the sort of day that I think about as I write this, isolation is the dominant feeling. And then you see a stone standing there, just off the road, but not of the road’s time.
Monday, May 1, 2023
April 2023 I write this at the end of April in a small church square, Largo de São Mamede, on the edge of the Príncipe Real area of Lisbon. Tomorrow will be the end of our forth week in Portugal, the longest period of time that I have spent in this country, and we still have five and a half weeks to go. This has been a busy month, time spent working on the house.
Monday, April 24, 2023
Today, 25th April, is Freedom Day here in Portugal. Last night Alcácer do Sal held a concert with Marisa Liz, a fireworks display at midnight, and then a DJ after that. We showed up for Marisa’s concert, but her music wasn’t to our taste and so we walked back home and got into bed (the concert had started about 10:30pm). Just before midnight, I went back out and waited by the river for the fireworks.
Sunday, April 2, 2023
I sit in a hotel - on the move. I look out of the hotel window onto a busy freeway intersection - people on the move, going in all directions. I look out on the adjacent airport - people on the move, across the country and across the world. People on the move fascinate me. The human race, it seems, have always been on the move - exploring, hunting, grazing ground, searching for a better life, conquering, pilgrimage.
Saturday, April 1, 2023
I recently watched the documentary Tukdam: Between Worlds. This explored the phenomenon in Tibetan Buddhism where experienced practitioners can remain in a state of meditation after the body has shown all physical signs of having died - no breathing, the heart has stopped. In this state the body can support itself, the skin looks healthy, there is no sign of decomposition of the body (even in the heat of India where many of the exiled Tibetan community now live), and a feeling of warmth remains around the heart.
Thursday, March 30, 2023
March 2023 Hello and welcome to the March 2023 newsletter. I am hoping that I can get this months’ newsletter out on time. Time will be a crunch. Because of how Micro.blog, the host for my blog and newsletter, is structured, I will have a small window of opportunity to do the final editing and add this letter before jumping on a airplane to San Francisco. I shall probably be doing that editing sitting at the departure gate at Maui airport.
Wednesday, March 29, 2023
A couple of days ago I replaced a metal bar that held up a small solar panel. The panel has been sitting on our gate post for around five years, quietly doing its job - charging a battery, and when that is fully charged, operating a gate. The metal bar had also quietly been doing its job. Holding up the panel, making sure that it captures as much sunlight as it can as the sun traverses the sky.
Sunday, March 26, 2023
I usually can’t start my day unless my bed is made. It is 7:45am on Sunday morning and the bed is made for today. I can now get on with my day. But yesterday was different… I didn’t make my bed. No one reason - I felt unwell and so got up later, and went back to bed mid-afternoon - but I was also up and about doing things through out the day.
Tuesday, February 28, 2023
February 2023 Welcome to my February 2023 newsletter. This month has been dominated for me by travel to Europe. A solo journey made up of two parts. First I stopped for a week in England to visit my mother. From there I travelled down to Portugal for two weeks. Nothing specific was planned for the England leg of the trip. I simply spent some quality time with my mother, did some odd jobs for her around her apartment, and allowed myself to rest and get over jet lag which I find can hit me pretty hard when I travel east to Europe.
Sunday, February 26, 2023
Yesterday I landed at JFK airport in New York after a seven and a half hour flight from Lisbon. The previous night I had spent at an airport hotel in Lisbon due to my early departure the next day. Although someone was sitting next to me on the flight to JFK, we both kept to ourselves, eating, reading, and watching movies on the inflight entertainment. I arrived in New York at lunchtime, but my onward flight to home in Hawaii did not leave until the next morning, and so I had booked an overnight stay at the TWA Hotel connected to Terminal 5 at JFK.
Thursday, February 23, 2023
I stopped reading a book recently, and for some reason that process of putting the book down sits very uncomfortably with me. The book had been recommended to me by a friend a number of years back. I purchased it at the time, but ever since it has languished, other titles jumping the queue. I finally picked the book up a month or so ago. I wanted to enjoy the story because it had been recommended to me, but I found the plot rambling, as though it was trying to keep going by padding itself out.
Wednesday, February 1, 2023
The last 36 hours has been fun and games with jet lag. Waking up at odd hours, trying to function clearly while really wanting to put my head down, and then finally doing so midway through the day. I write this after a sleepless night. Yesterday afternoon around lunchtime I could not function any longer and decided to put my head down for, I thought, an hour. Four hours alter I woke up.
Tuesday, January 31, 2023
January 2023 I start this newsletter at an airport hotel on the edge of San Francisco airport, and continue it at 41,000 ft (12,496.8 m) as the aircraft approaches the west coast of Ireland. London in a little under an hour and a half. I’m guessing that I will finish this letter in the middle of the night in England while dealing with the disorientation of jet lag. Hello, and welcome to my January 2023 newsletter.
Monday, January 30, 2023
I started this post yesterday. I am now on solid ground, though will be back in the air in a few hours. Living in Hawaii makes getting back to Europe a long journey. Anyway, on with the post… I write this at 30,000+ feet over the Pacific Ocean, en route to San Francisco. Maui has been experiencing some heavy rain over the last couple of days, and the last hour has been a bumpy climb away for the islands.
Thursday, January 19, 2023
Sean Heber has just published this post over at the Iconfactory website, following the pulling of Twitterrific from both the iOS and MacOS app stores. This was prompted by Twitter unceremoniously cutting access to the platform for third party apps. The ”End of an Era” indeed. When I think of the early days of Twitter, I think of Twitterrific. I signed up to the platform within its first year, though I don’t think that I really understood what I had signed up for?
Wednesday, January 11, 2023
Last night I went back through some slides from my 1989/90 travels through Pakistan, China, Nepal & India. I have numerous slides, and they are in an ill arranged mess at the moment. As I loaded up the carousel to put into the projector, I had little idea as to what I would be looking at, even whether I would recognize the images. My fears of not recognizing images were unfounded.
Wednesday, January 11, 2023
When you hear the word, “Quiet,” what does it bring up for you. Home Fear Avoid A Refuge Your Nature Happiness Trauma Rejection Peace Noise Need Sensitivity Introvert Left Out Don’t Fit In other? This list is not meant to be exhaustive. Just some words that came to me through watching my own and others’ reaction to quiet. What does come to mind when you think of quiet, and why?
Wednesday, January 4, 2023
In central north Maui are two small hills. They are man made. They started life as massive holes in the ground, a third has been dug, those holes were slowly filled up and then stuff was continually piled on top of them. Dirt and grass create the facade of a hill. They are garbage dumps, filled with the unwanted products of life styles on Maui. Someone once said to me words to the effect of,
Tuesday, January 3, 2023
My acupuncturist shared this poem, by Jeff Foster, with me yesterday. On hearing it, I felt as though I was being wrapped in a warm blanket. LET YOURSELF REST If you’re exhausted, rest. If you don’t feel like starting a new project, don’t. If you don’t feel the urge to make something new, just rest in the beauty of the old, the familiar, the known. If you don’t feel like talking, stay silent.