Here is my grandfather, Marine Cpl. John Barclay. He was killed in action on July 23 1944, 9 days before his 27th birthday and three days after the 3rd Marine Division invaded Guam. Although these seem like sharp details, my ideas about my grandfather were always soft focus, like this picture, which was the only […]

It’s all about the tomatoes, baby.

I miss Bill. I really do. I miss his silvery Rhodes Scholar ass. I miss the way he had thoughts in his head and how he didn’t plunge us into war all the time. You know, and that cute way he had of not turning America’s name to shit around the world, that was […]

Donna Wares, friend and partner at californiaauthors.com, is on deadline on her new Southern California travel book. Lately she’s been everywhere: from the Tehachapis to Death Valley to Malibu; riding horses, meeting ostridges, patting llamas; eating hot dogs at a Padres Game in San Diego, tasting squash blossoms at the L.A. restaurant-of-the-moment Blue Velvet. Here’s […]

Deadline U.S.A. Shoeleather and whiskey, a good story, bad marriages, odious beancounter interference in the newsroom and the evil of media consolidation — Plus: Bogey!
On my plate today: The new mini is sure enough zippy! But, making it con-ready, that’s a slow business. I’m learning new software and trying to move what’s necessary from […]

You know who you are:
• Harvard Scientists Build a Device to Smoke Weed During Brain Scan
• The inked Canadian idiot laptop thief gets LOLed. Check it out.
• The illusion of blogger anonymity: A federally-funded artificial intelligence lab is figuring out how to track people over the Internet, based on how they write.
• Several Dem answers […]

This is a 16 X 20″ oil sketch of Ian, that I did in 1997 or 1998 for friend Robin. Ian is Robin’s regal and beloved Fox Hound. On August 29, 2005, Robin had evacuated her cottage near the beach in Waveland, MS, but Ian, in his beautiful frame, spent some time floating […]

OK, I finally edited the video from my recent flight at Air Combat.
Here are some lag rolls from the practice runs before the fights. They’re a lot of fun!

And here’s fight #3 of 6. At the very end you can hear my opponent say “He got me again!”

[…]

Spent the day cleaning up 8 years of cruft and copying stuff onto a stand-alone drive to make the transfer to the dazzling new platform. It’s always boring-est before the light, I guess.

Yeah! New Mac is in da howse!!!!

Edward Humes, author of Over Here: How the G.I. Bill Tranformed the American Dream, was on NPR’s Morning Edition today, along with George McGovern and director Aurthur Penn, talking about the remarkable initiative that allowed an entire generation to go to college for the first time…
Read some more on Ed’s Amazon Blog.

goes on after Katrina. Here’s a Creole Conference preview that she wrote for last Friday’s Lagniappe.

So the other day I went over to godaddy and bought declareyourdisbelief.com. [no link yet, it’s parked for now] When I get my zipity new machine, I’m going to design some new disbelief tees and I thought I might put up a little disbelievers blog where I could muse, ponder and carp about all the […]

A collection of blogging bits and pieces that I haven’t got around to posting, or things that fell out of this or that post — leftover, but still tasty.
Val makes a special Hidden Cheese Pizza where the oh-so-creamy Buffalo Mozzarella hides under the fresh tomato slices. This — and the perfect roasting of the red […]

Lee Bollinger, President of Columbia University, giving the most amazing speech I’ve seen on TV in many years as he introduces and actually indicts Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad . He opened with a really beautiful commentary about freedom of speech and the role of discourse in the search for truth and finished with a pretty […]

Just got back from seeing 3:10 to Yuma with Laurie. It was good — Laurie said she never lost interest in the story, and I liked the performances and cinematography. If I sound lukewarm, tho, perhaps it’s because you shouldn’t see it a day after watching how Sergio Leone does a Western:

That’s a tough […]

Tomorrow is the autumnal equinox so we will be officially in my favorite season! Laurie and I are starting the new season clean and smooooth. Yesterday we went for an amazing Korean scrubbing bath at the Royal Health Spa in Garden Grove.

This is where the fabulous Korean bath ladies put you on an upholstered […]

This Google map shows the location of homes of some of my ancestors going back to 1890. I got most of the info from the very interesting photocopies of actual US census documents posted and cataloged at ancestry.com. The docs are members only, but you can get a 1 month membership and learn some really […]

Here’s a little geek layer cake for your amusement:
These lolcats are pretty funny:

Read a bunch of them, then check out the programming language spec for LOLCODE:

now add some Cthulhu:

(You’ll either be rolling on the floor by this time, or scratching your head. What kinda geek are you?)

A day with paint and Val.