My World of Wonders April 29, 2026

Where have I been? Mostly on the ship, with visits to Bermuda and the Azores. I am looking forward to both. In Bermuda I want to get off the ship and turn right, and explore and area we didn't see the last time. The Azores will add another country to the count. 

What have I been eating? The cruise is on Celebrity, noted for above average food, so lots of good things.  Interestingly I usually lose weight on cruises, lots of moving about and smaller serving sizes. 

What am I seeing? Lots of open space.

Where are we going? Through the Straits of Gibraltar, a couple of stops in Spain, then Italy early next week. 

What have I been doing? Falling into a new daily routine and relaxing. 
 

I am on a digital detox. This post was written ahead of time and scheduled to appear today. I have not missed posting at least once per day in over a decade. While on this detox, I will not have internet access many days, when I do have access it will be limited. Please continue to leave comments, but I may not reply to comments. I will read comments when I can. Normal service will resume in late May. 

Travel Tuesday: Mt Vernon Afternoon

I am on a digital detox. This post was written ahead of time and scheduled to appear today. I have not missed posting at least once per day in over a decade. While on this detox, I will not have internet access many days, when I do have access it will be limited. Please continue to leave comments, but I may not reply to comments. I will read comments when I can. Normal service will resume in late May. 

Monday Moods: Getting My Priorities Right

I have disappointed a few people when I chose this adventure, instead of accommodating others with my time. I put myself, before others. I have not always done this. 

Way back in the mid 1980's I was working for a home builder in Orlando.  We had a new project getting ready to open, and I had been tapped to be the onsite marketing lead. It was a great opportunity. I had scheduled a week of vacation and planned a trip to New Orleans. Then the dates for the project opening were posted, to overlap with my planned vacation. I asked if the date could be moved, pointing out that development was behind schedule.  The response was, "change your plans, or we will have someone else lead this project." I reasoned that the the project was behind schedule, and that was met with "he assures he will get it done." I cancelled my travel plans. Then the opening date was pushed back two weeks because the development was behind schedule - as I knew it was.  I never did take that trip to New Orleans. I let work take priority over my life. (It was a very good year, the most profitable I ever had with that company.) 

Flash forward to 2018, we were planning a trip to Vienna and onward into Slovakia to see where SBs grandmothers were born. I was serving on the board of a national organization, and they issued a save the date for an important board meeting in Nashville.  We were instructed to hold the dates, but not make travel plans, as there were details to be worked out. It overlapped with the only dates that worked for Vienna, so we didn't plan that trip. Then the board meeting was moved to a month later. Fast forward to today, the locations in Slovakia are 60 miles from the border with Ukraine.  We will make it to Vienna, but probably not father east. I let volunteer work be a priority over my life, and missed an opportunity that may never be possible again.  

As I was planning this trip, there was a save the date for another board I am serving on, for a meeting in San Diego. I kept checking and the answer was, we are not confirmed, there are details that have to be worked out, we are not sure on the budget, don't make travel plans yet. Then the cruise that starts this adventure opened for booking. It is repositioning cruise, so there is only one date, the same week as the maybe, we are not sure, we are trying to work out the details board meeting. I finally decided it was time to let my life be the priority and I booked the cruise. Three months later I get repeated emails asking me if I can't please speak at the meeting in San Diego. I promptly explained that I would be in the middle of the Atlantic, and unable to be in San Diego. 

It has taken me 50 years to do it, but I have my priorities straight, if it is not confirmed, I am not going to plan my personal life around it.  

I am on a digital detox. This post was written ahead of time and scheduled to appear today. I have not missed posting at least once per day in over a decade. While on this detox, I will not have internet access many days, when I do have access it will be limited. Please continue to leave comments, but I may not reply to comments. I will read comments when I can. Normal service will resume in late May. 

The Sunday Five: Big Thoughts

1: What emerging technology do you think is going to have the biggest impact on life ten years from now? 

2: Should the average home get larger or smaller over the next ten years? 

3: What is the most important thing for schools to teach today? 

4: If travel to the moon was as easy and safe as going to the grocery store, would you go?

5: How do you eat a 100 pound Chocolate Easter Bunny? 

My Answers: 

1: What emerging technology do you think is going to have the biggest impact on life ten years from now? Autonomous vehicles, driverless cars, trucks, drones. 

2: Should the average home get larger or smaller over the next ten years? Homes should get smaller. 

3: What is the most important thing for schools to teach today? Human interaction. Machines can do research, write, make decisions, fly airplanes, what they don't do as well at is making people feel like they are valued, understood, or believed. 

4: If travel to the moon was as easy and safe as going to the grocery store, would you go? No, and I am not sure why. 

5: How do you eat a 100 pound Chocolate Easter Bunny?  One bite at a time. 

Please share your answers in the comments.  

I am on a digital detox. This post was written ahead of time and scheduled to appear today. I have not missed posting at least once per day in over a decade. While on this detox, I will not have internet access many days, when I do have access it will be limited. Please continue to leave comments, but I may not reply to comments. I will read comments when I can. Normal service will resume in late May. 

A quick update, we are about 1000 miles east northeast of Bermuda. The weather is cool, moist, and I am having a great time. The enrichment lecturer is an art history professor from FIU, and is very good. Next stop is the Azores in a couple of days.

The Saturday Morning Post: Taking Creativity on the Road

My peak travel year, I boarded 32 airline flights, and spent 73 nights in hotels.  I don't travel that much anymore, but when we do leave home we tend to be gone for longer periods of time.  And while travel exposes me to ideas, and feeds my creativity, my ability to create art is limited when I am on the road.  So how do I take creativity on the road?

I always travel with a camera, really two of cameras, because my phone has a surprisingly great camera with three lenses and a 48 megapixel sensor.  The cameras allow me to be creative on a day to day basis. 

I carry a small notebook, that I can jot down ideas in, or make simple sketches.  These are things I should do more of. I will try this year. 

I take along a tiny computer, that gives me access to blogger and writing software. I try not to take work on the road, but I have edited reports and articles while traveling.  The change of routine of being away from home, often frees my mind to reexamine projects I have been working on in new ways, when this happens, a Chromebook allows me to get thoughts on paper before forgetting them.  

The creative process is different when on the road, and that is probably a good thing. Practice makes perfect, but doing the same thing over and over makes "Jack a dull boy." We can leverage travel to shake up the process, and bring freshness to our creative endeavours.  

I am on a digital detox. This post was written ahead of time and scheduled to appear today. I have not missed posting at least once per day in over a decade. While on this detox, I will not have internet access many days, when I do have access it will be limited. Please continue to leave comments, but I may not reply to comments. I will read comments when I can. Normal service will resume in late May. 

Funky Friday: Chunky Funky Buildings

 I love modern brutalist architecture. This is a modern building, built atop a traditional street level building. If you don't look up, you would never see it.  I do hope the cantilevered section is over engineered and carefully built, so it will last for hundreds of years.  If I ever moved, I would love to have one of those balconies overlooking the canal below, with my office/studio in one of the corner windows just to the right of the terraces. 

Modern buildings don't need to be boring. 

I am on a digital detox. This post was written ahead of time and scheduled to appear today. I have not missed posting at least once per day in over a decade. While on this detox, I will not have internet access many days, when I do have access it will be limited. Please continue to leave comments, but I may not reply to comments. I will read comments when I can. Normal service will resume in late May. 

The Thursday Ramble: Culturally Open Minded Travel

 

About three months ago, Angus in Scotland posted a link to an article about first impressions of life in the United States. The article talked about how visits to the United States impacted the thoughts of visitors from Iran, China and Russia.  Reading the article made me think, about how travel changes us. Timely as I am headed out on a grand adventure. 

People live differently in different places. The biggest differences are in international travel, though even from region to region within your country you will find differences. Differences in culture, in norms of behaviour, differences in language, the way homes are built, in the way that people live. 

There is much to be learned from the differences in culture.  To benefit from travel, I need to be culturally open minded. To expect that things will be different. To accept that what is different is normal. 

When I travel I suspend judgement. I remind myself that no one way is inferior or superior. This is the hardest thing for most people to do. When I judge another culture against my norm, I fail to understand the culture. 

I have learned many things when traveling, that have improved my life. I have tried not to try to change cultures, when I travel. I suspend judgement, and travel with a culturally open mind. 

What will I learn on this grand adventure?  

I am on a digital detox. This post was written ahead of time and scheduled to appear today. I have not missed posting at least once per day in over a decade. While on this detox, I will not have internet access many days, when I do have access it will be limited. Please continue to leave comments, but I may not reply to comments. I will read comments when I can. Normal service will resume in late May. 

My World of Wonders April 22nd 2026

 

Where have I been this week? If all has gone to schedule, we flew to Ft. Lauderdale over the weekend, and went to sea on Monday, we should be nearing Bermuda. 

What have I been up to? Exploring the ship, relaxing, reading, taking a few photos. 

Who I have I talked to? My sweet bear and strangers.  I always talk to strangers. 

What am I enjoying? A change of pace, a change of scene, the grand adventure of travel. 

What can I see out of my window? Water-Water everywhere. 

I am on a digital detox. This post was written ahead of time and scheduled to appear today. I have not missed posting at least once per day in over a decade. While on this detox, I will not have internet access many days, when I do have access it will be limited. Please continue to leave comments, but I may not reply to comments. I will read comments when I can. Normal service will resume in late May. 

Travel Tuesday: Sea Views

I am on a digital detox. This post was written ahead of time and scheduled to appear today. I have not missed posting at least once per day in over a decade. While on this detox, I will not have internet access many days, when I do have access it will be limited. Please continue to leave comments, but I may not reply to comments. I will read comments when I can. Normal service will resume in late May. 

Monday Mood: Retreat from a hyper connected world

I remember my first email account, I started law school in the late summer of 1996, and the University assigned me an email account. To access it, I had to go to one the terminals at the University and log in; later there was remote access; I opened my first personal email account that fall. A couple of months into graduate school, I bought my first cell phone, 30 minutes a month of calls in a limited area, for $30 a month. School was 82 miles from home, it felt better to have a connection on the road. That fall I bought my first desktop computer and we had dial up internet access at home. A few years later, I bought my first "smart phone" a blackberry. The salesman lied, he said in a week they wouldn't be able to pry it out of your hands, it was only couple of days until I couldn't leave home without it. And it had good international phone service. 

Today the easiest way to reach me is email, text is a second choice, I am hard to reach by phone as I often leave my phone in the other room and don't hear it, and if you don't show up on caller ID, I don't answer. I check email on my desktop computer, my phone, an Ipad, and a couple of Chromebooks.  I spend several hours a day connected to the web, YouTube is my primary media for entertainment. 

I probably spend far to much time being connected. And it is hard to get away from. 

Starting late this afternoon, I will be disconnected to varying degrees for a month, a retreat from my hyper connected world. In the first couple of weeks there will several days of complete retreat, interspersed with four days when I will be connected for a few hours, but only a few. After that I will have phone service, and WiFi in hotels. Last year we did WiFi at sea and found it disappointing, the service was really not very good, and it didn't provide a break from the connected world, it just moved it a new venue with crappy service. We are not doing that this year.  I will have phone and email when we are in Port (my phone plan includes 36 days of year of international service) and on the land based part of the trip.  

Just before the sun sets today, my retreat from the hyper connected world begins.  Worry not, there are posts scheduled for your reading enjoyment.  I will reply to comments when the retreat is over. 

My digital detox. 

Our Sunday in Ft. Lauderdale

 

The Sunday Five: Travel Dreams

1: If there were no limits, where would you go today? 

2: Where have you long dreamed of going, that you have not gone to? 

3: Apart from where you live, where do you feel most at home? 

4: Where have you traveled to the most times? 

5: How would you like to travel across the continent? 

My answers: 

1: If there were no limits, where would you go today? Italy - that is where we leave for tomorrow. 

2: Where have you long dreamed of going, that you have not gone to? Japan.  

3: Apart from where you live, where do you feel most at home? London. 

4: Where have you traveled to the most times? Florida, several times a year when my parents were alive. 

5: How would you like to travel across the continent? I would like to drive it, but in very short travel days, maybe 100-150 miles a day average. 

Please share your answers in the comments. 

The Saturday Morning Post: Let Change Feed Your Creativity

There are few things that bring more change to our lives than travel, I use travel, and the changes it brings, to feed my creativity. I try to travel with an open mind, looking for what is different, or new to me, and letting that feed my creativity.

This is most notable on grand adventures, but it applies equally to every time we get out of the house, or out of the place we work. Examine what is around you, look for what is changing, what is new, and what is disappearing. Pause for a few minutes and watch a building being torn down, and you will develop new understanding of how buildings are built. What elements stand the strongest, what elements are the most fragile. 

I am headed to the airport today, off to feed my creativity. 

An update 

35000 feet and headed south this afternoon, check in and security were a breeze. Lots of lakes and rivers down there.

Friday Features: Dinosaurs

This is not written by AI. Any mistakes or misstatements of material fact are my own. I was recently asked to provide a statement of AI usage for a book chapter that I wrote on identity theft and cybercrime (the book should go to print this summer.)  Other than spelling and grammar tools in Google Docs, I used none. The editor seemed surprised by this. Maybe I will learn to use those tools, but I learned to write the old fashioned way. 

I am a dinosaur. I bought my first electronic typewriter when I was working on BA, a Panasonic with spell check and about a 20 page memory. I could edit and retype a chapter with the push of a button- what a huge step forward. I started law school just as online legal research was becoming the norm. I think I was the last class at the University of Louisville that had to master legal research in the print books, before being given access to the online databases. And I am glad I was trained that way, though I will never use Shepard's Citations again - ever! 

Computers have become a part of our daily lives in little more than 30 years, smartphones in less than 20 years.  There is more computing power in my phone, than NASA had to land men on the moon when I was growing up. It is not that the dinosaurs couldn't get the job done, but it took longer.  We can do so much more, so much faster today. I still believe that understanding the underlying process of research and writing, of capturing an image, makes a difference in how I use the tools to do it faster. In a way, I am the last of the bridge generation, between digital dinosaurs and digital natives. 

I struggled with this post. The Muses seem to have left on the grand adventure a few weeks ahead of me.  Inspiration has been hard to find. I had this post written, and left it to fester for a couple of days, and it hit me that the best part of it, was what was buried in the middle. I can hear a long ago editor shouting across the room, "don't bury the lead, put it first." I am so glad I learned from writers who knew how to write, even if it took 50 years for me to apply some of the lessons.  (Dave Snoffer, you made a difference in your far to few years.) 

The Thursday Ramble: Tourist Season

 There was a really tasteless joke in Miami 30 years ago that went something like this, "They say it is tourist season, yet they get so upset when one gets shot, not at all like deer season in New Jersey." 

I lived in Florida for almost 20 years, tourist season was a very real part of life. With Disney and the world of Worlds, there were actually several tourist seasons, Thanksgiving through New Years, snowbirds from November through March, spring breakers for a month around easter, and Brits broiling in the sun in summer (only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the Florida heat and humidity in July and August.) 

Washington DC has a couple of defininate tourist seasons.  Summer, starting in late May, though the end of August is family season. This crowd is filled with disheveled parents, bored children, most with sore feet in shoes that were stylish and not made for walking. You look at the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol building and think that is a nice 15 minute walk, not knowing it is over two-miles of hellscape. They think they can "see the Smithsonian" on Thursday before lunch, not realizing that the Smithsonian is eight museums in well over one-million square feet of space, and that does not include the National Gallery of Art - with two additional buildings or the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center out at Dulles with nearly 300,000 sq ft of aircraft and spacecraft displays. 

School group seasons, there are two - mid-October through mid-November, and March-April when masses of middle and high school groups from across the eastern half of the country descend on the city. These are marked by large numbers of clearly distracted students, trying to be cool and fit in, led by either overly concerned chaperons or chaperones who are clearly glad they got a free trip to DC and don't really care if the kid wander off never to be seen before the bus leaves to go back to Iowa. They travel in packs of about 35, the number of seats on a tour bus, and all try to squeeze into the same door of a subway car, out of fear that if they go in a different door, they won't go to the same place. 

Then there is Cherry Blossom season, also known as the season of disappointment. The Cherry Blossom festival is scheduled, the dates published, tours are booked, hotel prices are doubled about a year in advance, and the trees pay absolutely no attention to the schedule. Half the time the trees bloom two weeks before the festival and the trees are nice and green when the tourists arrive, about half the time, the trees bloom two weeks after the festival, leaving the tourists straining to see the pink buds and wondering what all of the hype is about. If the weather suddenly turns hot for three or four days, the trees may bloom, go into leaf and drop all of the blossoms - falling and drifting like snow, in three days. Maybe one in ten years, the peak bloom, matches the dates of the festival, the other nine out of ten years tourists wonder why they didn't book the Mardi Gras package instead, the parades always occur on the scheduled day (but seldom on time.) 

My World of Wonders: April 15, 2026

What have I been up to in the kitchen? I asked Sweet Bear what he wanted for dinner, and he shrugged his shoulders and said, "take out Chinese?" That was all I needed to hear. I had ramen noodles, chicken, carrots, broccoli, cabbage, mushrooms, and a couple of Asian sauces, I made chicken veggie stir-fry over noodles. A few minutes of careful knife work, and a few minutes of cooking. Cheddar and Onion spread, my favorite Tesco Express sandwich when I am in the UK is Cheddar and Onion, sadly no one here makes this, so I make my own. It is simply grated onion, cheddar, mayo and maybe a little salt. Roast Pork Tenderloin, cheddar mashed potatoes, and mix veggies.  Sloppy Joe's and potato salad. 

Where have I been this week? The pool, the gym, the gallery to update a wall tag, the community center for an Arts group meeting. Into DC to have dinner with an old friend of Sweet Bear's.  The farmers market. King Street in Old town Alexandria for a Sunday morning walk. The pharmacy and a walk along the river. 

What have I been reading? Big Bad Wool, a novel about very wise sheep. I have four books loaded on my Kindle for travel reading. Amazon informed me this week, my Kindle is so old, that they are discontinuing technical support for it this spring. I have used this one for over ten years. A few years ago, I was worried that it was failing and I bought a replacement, but decided to keep using the old one as long as it worked. It still works, but sometime later this spring I won't be able to download new books to it. And I am okay with that. I have far and away gotten my money's worth out of it.  When I am home, I read mostly print books, I use the Kindle when I travel, I can carry a months worth of books in less space and weight than one book. I find the screen on my phone too small to read much on. My IPad is an antique - but it does what I need. I expect that Apple will drop it from support in the next year or so. 

Who have a talked to this week? My Sweet Bear, Erica, Eric, Warren, Paul, Marcel, Susan. 

What is special about this post? For a couple of months, I have been writing posts, scheduling them ahead of time, to assure coverage while we are away on a Grand Adventure, and to allow myself a digital detox. While I may do a little editing and updating over the next 5 weeks, this is the last post that I need to write between now in May 21. 

Travel Tuesday: Spring Time At Mount Vernon

 

Monday Mood: Random Beauty and Sadness

A week ago I went into DC to wander the National Gallery of Art for a couple of hours. It was a great day for a walk, bright, clear, cool but not cold. A beautiful day. At each end of the main floor at the National Gallery there are salons, areas a couple of steps down, with a high ceiling, plants and at various times in history fountains. A photographer and a couple of assistants were directing this young lady as I entered the space.  I captured half a dozen or so images. Looking at them, this is far and away my favorite. Her looking down, just works. 

The encounter was entirely random, unplanned, and so so beauty filled. 

Slow down and observe, 

Look up and look around, 

Sometimes the greatest beauty appears randomly. 

Sadness: A dear neighbor died Friday morning.  I met Larry a year or so ago, he was the partner of the sweet bear that leads the Saturday morning water aerobics classes.  He was a local native, born and raised in Maryland, he had served in the military (Navy as a recall) then had a long career as an accountant for the department of defense. He has adult children in the area and was looking forward to the birth of a grandchild later this spring.  He was kind of quiet, with a strong sense of humor. He and Giuseppe were so happy together.  They had been regulars at our monthly LGBT community gatherings, hosting at their condo a coupe of times. (Movie night featuring "The Bird Cage" one evening.) I knew he had been unwell, bouncing from test to test, and specialist to specialist over the last few months.  The last I had heard he was in the hospital, trying to make arrangements to come home. His death was not a surprise, when I saw the email, I had that sinking feeling. And yet it brings great sadness.  It takes a while to move from the sadness of loss, to fondness at having known him.  

Hold your friends close, 

Give them a big hug while you can, 

Life is short, embrace and enjoy everyday you can. 

 

Sunday Five: Flowers and Bees

1: What is the first flower to bloom in spring where you live? 

2: Is there a flower that reminds you of funerals?

3: What is your favorite flower? 

4: When was the last time you had fresh flowers in your home? 

5:  What is blooming where you are today? 

My Answers: 

1: What is the first flower to bloom in spring where you live?  Crocuses, I missed bulb flowers when I lived in Florida, there is not enough of a cold season for them to bloom a second year. 

2: Is there a flower that reminds you of funerals? Red Roses, what my grandmother ordered for my grandfather's funeral. 

3: What is your favorite flower? Dandelion, my father kept bees, and the Dandelion bloom was the first honey flow of spring for the bees. 

4: When was the last time you had fresh flowers in your home? Today, we almost always do. 

5:  What is blooming where you are today? Trees, bulb flowers, 

Please share your answers in the comments.