All Purls. No Swine.
Barely five miles down the back roads from me is "Joe Walker Elementary School," named after hometown hero Joe Walker, who was the first person to fly an airplane to space. Joe was born in Washington, Pennsylvania on February 20, 1921, and graduated from Washington and Jefferson College with a BA in Physics in 1942. … Continue reading July 19, 1963–Joe Walker Reaches Space
Well, I don’t think it’s quite that dire, but I did get a good chuckle out of a Fox News article today: Musk uncovers limestone mine used for manually processing federal workers’ retirement papers. Musk says the retirement process at the facility is done by hand, limits the number of federal employees who can retire to 10,000… Continue reading “DOGE is Coming!” The Eye of Elon Swivels to the Mines of Moria
“I have loved the stars too truly to be fearful of the night”– Sarah Williams Sarah Williams was a British Victorian poet who is best known for “The Old Astronomer,” written in the person of an elderly astronomer on his deathbed who speaking to his young pupil. Her output is short, as was her life (1837-1868),… Continue reading Quote of the Day: Worlds Beyond Earth
This isn't a Valentine's Day post. It's a copy of a six-year old Ricochet post, one for which the editors mangled the original title (which appears above), and which I like rather better than theirs. I was reminded of it earlier today when I was retrieving a bunch of drywall trowels from the garage, and… Continue reading I Know a Hawk From a Handsaw. And a Cat From Some Guacamole
It’s Easter 1979. Mr. Right and I are living in a tiny house we bought for the princely sum of $7,200 (all we could afford), somewhere in Pittsburgh’s low-rent district, amongst the druggies and the motorcycle gangs. Monthly mortgage payment: $71.97. Rather abrupt investment in learning necessary self-defense techniques and maneuvers on the part of… Continue reading Confessions of an Accidental IT Professional, Chapter One
A social media platform’s policies are good if the most extreme 10% on left and right are equally unhappy--Elon Musk To be perfectly clear, I'm not a diehard Elon Musk fan. He's an interesting fellow who doesn’t fit into any convenient box that we’d like to put him into. We in the UK used to… Continue reading Quote of the Day: May I Live To See It
Dearest Readers, A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that the images I carefully select and attach to my posts to provide what is (in my own mind) a "great page experience" (together with the indefinite article) for those of you who are kind enough to read them, weren't appearing properly, if at all. Life… Continue reading “An Easier Path to great Page Experience [sic] For Everyone”–NOT! Describing a WordPress Fail
“The internet is not where you hide – it’s where you are found.“–Emily Aston Perrin I’ve been giving the advice found in the title of this post to student writers and friends for decades. It’s advice I follow myself, as anyone who’s read more than a few of my posts (thank you) must know. And… Continue reading Write What You Know
"Can you hear me now?" was the tag line in a series of Verizon commercials from the early 2000s, touting its nationwide coverage, and the fact that folks from all parts of the country were more likely to be able to "hear" each other via cellphone if they were Verizon subscribers, because of the company's… Continue reading Can You Hear Me Now Yet?
Shameless self-promotion alert: Several months ago, I was asked by a couple of Ricochet members if I'd like to appear on their weekly Land of Confusion show, in which they interview one or more other members via a Zoom chat, and then post the results on Ricochet. Things have been a bit hectic for me… Continue reading She Speaks!