1. Waymo When Paul came out of the restaurant, Trudy and I got up from the bench where we had been sitting in the sun. We all started to walk across the parking lot. I had been watching a man with a bag getting into a car with no driver. There was a large spinning […]
Yearly Archives: 2024
Starliner Touchdown
In the dead of night through the eyes of infrared cameras after an autonomous deorbit burn, two drogue parachutes and then three mains slowed an uncrewed Starliner to a successful touchdown.
Baby Steps
The idea of baby steps has an intuitive obviousness about it. For years, I have loved using the term, illustrating it with examples. Preaching it to others. But practicing it was a different matter. You’re looking at a card-carrying procrastinator. Yet to survive as a teacher, you must work efficiently. Otherwise… well otherwise you burn […]
Don’t Waste Your Time
Friday afternoon after the last school bell. The halls are empty. The classroom doors are all shut and locked, except Room 255. I’m putting up some decorations on the door. “Don’t waste your time!” someone calls out from the end of the hall, and then she laughs. “Face it. You might as well just […]
Yellow Garden Spider
Let’s talk about the Yellow Garden Spider again, shall we? She’s still there. (Indeed, we found another one near the front door: Beware garden walks in the evening!) I walked out to check on her this afternoon. She saw me coming, and she scrambled. Not out of sight, just higher up on her web. And you […]
My Brother
My brother likes music continuously playing in every room. I often turn it off when we leave. My brother runs his dogs for miles sometimes twice a day. I walk ours around the block in the morning before it gets hot. My brother organizes swims across the lake. I paddle. My brother sets up tents […]
Argiope aurantia
1. 1967 They ran out the back door into the field behind the farmhouse. It was summer. The air was warm. The sky was blue. And cousins were everywhere. The kids ran across the lawn and into the nearby farm field. They ran into the corn rows. And somewhere in there, he encountered a spider […]