Last night, I was a guest at Manda's house. There were six of use in the living room, and the topic of conversation fell to Star Trek and it's various franchises. And I entertained a couple of the listeners with my rant about Voyager (hint: Amelia Frickin' Earhardt. It would have been perfect.) At one point, Manda asserted that The Next ( Read more... )

Right now, this entry is a rough draft. I'll be refining it over the week. If you have any comments or suggestions, I'l be happy to address or incorporate them into a revision of the body of the text ( Read more... )

Alright. Today's the day I traditionally update my will. I didn't do so last year, because there were possibilities developing in the heir department that needed to resolve themselves. I didn't do so in 2011, for no good reason ( Read more... )

Paragraph 1: A while ago, somebody made a short film called "The Innocence of Muslims". By all accounts, it doesn't portray the prophet Mohammed in a flattering light. The producer is supposed to be an Israeli Jew living in California, but that identity appears to be a hoax. I don't know who made the film. According to some news reports, it had ( Read more... )

This morning, it's 10 degrees warmer in Minneapolis than it is in St. Louis. That just seems wrong.

On the way down to St. Louis, my car died. According to the mechanic in Moberly, Missouri, the fuel pump is busted, and I also have a problem with the water pump. The car is 7 years old, and has 216,000 miles. I've taken good care of the engine, in terms of scheduled maintenance, but .... I'm thinking that it might be time to get a new car ( Read more... )

This past April, ACT sent me to observe classes in Oklahoma City, and I came back with a banjo. To be precise, a practical banjo. I already owned one instrument, which I've had since college. It's a top-of-the-line Alvarez; gorgeous but with a solid wood resonator and a lot of brass, and that sucker is about ten pounds heavy, which is a burden ( Read more... )

So, I'd written the framework of a ceremony. To make sure I'd crossed all my proverbial "t"s, I asked Master Andrixos to send me a "default" Laurel ceremony, which he promptly did. He then left for a tour of events (he's a merchant in the Society, selling fabric trim). I took my own sweet time getting a revision back to him. He spent a day or ( Read more... )

So, in my previous post, I mentioned a number of inspirations and touchstones I've found helpful over the years. But I didn't mention one of the major ones, because it was the framework for the elevation ceremony itself ( Read more... )

Three days after being brought into the Order of the Laurel, I thought I might mention some of the philosophical work that has informed my position on things.

• None of these were written in the last few years, and many of them are decades old. They come from various other lands where the customs are not necessarily the ones you've been brought ( Read more... )