Summer’s been long and hot. Usually, I’m still enjoying it by August, but this time, winter is looking sweeter than ever. This post originally ran in January 27, 2015, and is about being colder than I ever had before, and about a time North America was colder than it had been in thousands of […]
Commentary
If you know anything about beavers, it’s likely that they build dams. Natures engineers, they’re called. Eager beavers are up and at ‘em, ready to build complex structures with the simplest materials in just the right spot to stop a river from flowing. In fact, engineering schools across the country — MIT, Oregon State, American […]
I am so angry, so sad. Today I drove my two children to the first day of a weeklong day-camp with a nature theme. They are learning about local species, pressing flowers, that kind of thing. The teachers expected that the kids would spend most of the day outside in nature. Instead, the kids will […]
For as long as I could read, I have started my day with the morning newspaper. I’ve had a subscription to a printed daily newspaper, and oftentimes two, for all of my adult life. It was a sad day at my house when the Denver Post stopped delivering to our part of Western Colorado in […]
The 2018 FIFA World Cup begins today (or, has already begun, depending on which time zone you’re in and when you’re reading this). This time around, the American team didn’t qualify. It’s embarrassing, to be frank, that we managed to miss the World Cup. You can read more about how it all happened here. Yes, […]
I used to snicker at people who religiously read their daily horoscopes. Astrology is not science. Not even close. “No one has shown that astrology can be used to predict the future or describe what people are like based on their birth dates,” some exasperated person at NASA wrote in a Tumblr post debunking a […]
Driving home through the bottom of Colorado you can’t help hitting mountains. A jigsaw puzzle of passes lies ahead. In the winter, choose your poison, Lizard Head, Wolf Creek, or, in the middle, the dangerous one. The route we took last week put us through the middle route, a chain of two passes leading to […]
I have a friend who is a magician. He performs the occasional stage show with card tricks and coins hidden behind the ear. His work is sleight of hand, a flash of movement deceiving the eye. He’d say it’s science. You experiment and find what actually works. My friend, Angus Stocking, is also a tarot […]