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Category: Out and About.

The Abandonment of Even that Which is Still Modern

March 3rd, 2010  |  by nick  |  published in Out and About.

photographed outside Lander, Wyoming on September 28, 2006

Before the automobile and the bus and truck supplanted them, steam locomotives, streetcars, and steamships held sway as our transportation of choice for over a century. They were fast and efficient; clean and modern. And while one might argue that the smoke and soot from coal-fired boilers was [...]

Giving Fido What He Wants, Apparently

February 16th, 2010  |  by nick  |  published in Out and About.

photographed in Manhattan, New York, on February 14, 2010

When choosing a restraining device, there are several options to consider. Some owners like it if Fido rides in a dog carrier. Others don’t like the confinement of a carrier, choosing instead to educate Fido to sit still in a doggy seat belt (yes, they really do [...]

An Aerial View of What Was Created Some 45 Years Ago

February 8th, 2010  |  by nick  |  published in Out and About.

photographed above Tierra Verde, Pinellas County, Florida on May 3, 2009

Ten years ago, when the economy and peoples of the world were beginning to stabilize themselves after the great war – a man had a dream. To build a new way of life – a better way of life for the average man. The [...]

Skill Development Starts Early in France, Including Prime Ball-Balancing Abilities

December 31st, 2009  |  by nick  |  published in Out and About.

photographed in Paris, France on September 19, 2009

It is almost stating the obvious to say that the 1998 World Cup has completely transformed the way football is seen in France. However, what now seems self-evident was almost unthinkable only a few months ago.
Riding contentedly on the crews of the wave, or should I say the [...]

Reminiscences of Things Permanently Gone

December 10th, 2009  |  by nick  |  published in Out and About.

photographed on Santa Catalina Island on June 12, 2009

How often, in looking over the blue waters of the ocean, we wonder at the mysterious life of the depths, and imaging the strange creatures which dwell there. Poets have described their fancies of it, scientists have written down in their exact language its characteristics, but what [...]

Chinese Cross-Country Carp, a Continuing Conundrum

December 8th, 2009  |  by nick  |  published in Out and About.

photographed in Shanghai, China on August 25, 2007

Imprisoned in the library by the rain while our host was busy elsewhere, the Professor and I had spent the morning rummaging through the shelves. The Professor’s find had been a black-letter treatise on etiquette, in the French of the fifteenth century. I had unearthed from behind a [...]

A Representation of the ‘Singular Loneliness of the Plains’

November 4th, 2009  |  by nick  |  published in Out and About.

I-29 south of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. October 9, 2009.
The sense of the singular loneliness of the Plains at such a time is overpowering; and one is forced to admire the courage of the pioneers of this highway – plunging as they did into an unknown and uncharted wilderness, fixing their daily position by the [...]

The Real Stonehenge Seems to Have a Slight Advantage Over the Version in Kansas

October 12th, 2009  |  by nick  |  published in Out and About.

Wichita, Kansas. October 11, 2009.
That Diodorus’s Temple of the Sun in Great Britain was Stonehenge, seems to deserve credit; and that the Druids were astronomers, is authenticated by Cæsar. It may therefore be true, that the position of stones in a ring had an astronomical allusion.
In the work before us, p. 48, an account [...]

‘At Last, in the Gloaming, Paris’

October 9th, 2009  |  by nick  |  published in Out and About.

Paris, France. September 21, 2009.
Once on deck in the cold air, he saw through the faint light a row of houses beyond the low wharf buildings, grey mellow houses of four storeys with tiled roofs and intricate ironwork balconies, with balconies in which the ironwork had been carefully twisted by artisans long ago dead into [...]

Subsitute ‘Camera’ for ‘Pencil’, ‘Louvre Courtyard’ for ‘Café’ and ‘Capturing’ for ‘Writing’

October 8th, 2009  |  by nick  |  published in Out and About.

Paris, France. September 21, 2009.
A girl came in the café and sat by herself at a table near the window. She was very pretty with a face fresh as a newly minted coin if they minted coins in smooth flesh with rain-freshened skin, and her hair was black as a crow’s wing and cut sharply [...]

The Non-Volcanic Campi Phlegræi of Western Idaho

September 16th, 2009  |  by nick  |  published in Out and About.

Along state route 95 in western Idaho. September 27, 2006.
This division is one which has long been recognized by the inhabitants of the Neapolitan provinces, who speak of the second flat region of fertile plains as the Campagna Felice, and of the first as the Campi Flegræi.
The Campi Phlegræi, or “Burning Fields,” then, owe their [...]

Navigation is Difficult when Signs Don’t Work

August 31st, 2009  |  by nick  |  published in Out and About.

Rural southwest Pennslyvania. October 17, 2007.
People in many more cities in countries at all stages of development report barriers to city driving. These include heavy traffic, poor condition of roads, ineffective traffic calming devices, inadequate street lighting, inadequate signage that is obscured or poorly positioned, and the disregard for traffic rules and regulations. For example, [...]

Finding a Moment of Meditation Among the Cacophony of a Bourbon-Street Friday Night

August 5th, 2009  |  by nick  |  published in Out and About.

New Orleans, Louisiana. July 31, 2009.
It is not in the measure of blessing nor the degree of resolution felt in some wonderful hour, when everything is favorable, that redeems the world. In the quiet of some holy sanctuary or the silence of some hour of meditation it is very easy to form high purposes. There [...]

A Late-Night Portrait near Bourbon Street, Featuring a Straw Hat

August 3rd, 2009  |  by nick  |  published in Out and About.

New Orleans, Louisiana. August 1, 2009.
In New Orleans, the tourist mecca is the French Quarter, home of epicurean French and Creole cuisine, where hibiscus bloom among wrought-iron grilles. The area is rich in antique shops, Dixieland jazz and picturesque garden patios. At night, Bourbon Street swings and a string of night spots cater to the [...]

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