Recent Entries

• One year later…

  March 20, 2025

  Last night I watched that special about the Key Bridge, and, for the most part, it was a waste of time. A good portion was consumed by interviews with politicians, one of whom (our foolish governor) was far more concerned with his upcoming run for re-election than the bridge disaster. Which, of c...

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• A metaphor for change

  March 19, 2025

  It's been almost a year since I started this journal; and almost a year since the fall of the Key Bridge, the event that has inspired many of my musings. Tomorrow night on the local PBS station there is to be a retrospect special about the collapse and all that has transpired in the year…

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• Reaching way back into the past

  March 15, 2025

  I think it's time for an Open Diary flashback, going all the way back to the turn of the last millennium. It was in this time when I was fighting an epic psychological battle against a situational phobia that had gripped me since childhood. This all came up again recently because I spent the last...

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• The limitations of dreams…

  March 13, 2025

  Last night I had a very strange dream, which, for the most part, isn't all that unusual in my case. This dream was related to something I'm very much looking forwards to doing, but it took a bizarre and unsettling turn near the end. The night before last I slept badly and thus I remembered…

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• To cage the beast….

  March 12, 2025

  So now I have discussed various rogue man-killing and man-eating animals and the efforts taken to either destroy them or to prevent people from coming in contact with them in the first place. These days, where conservation is much more of a thing than in the past, the latter method of protecting ...

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• Slaying the beast…

  March 9, 2025

  Back in the 19th century, with the advent of more powerful rifles, along with an increase in world travel, big game hunting became a popular pursuit among those able to afford it. Also in this time period the interest in man-eating animals and the exploits of those who hunted them increased due t...

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• Still life photography

  March 6, 2025

  Back in my college days I had the opportunity to do some studio still life photography, which included the use of a borrowed 4X5 camera which the school would lend out to students.  If you aren't familiar with this sort of camera, it is of the type where the user must have a blanket over…

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• Underrated killers

  March 6, 2025

  Last week I watched a special on my local PBS station about the collapse of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge. I had been looking forwards to this show since it was announced earlier this year. This was basically a timeline of the events that happened from the time the bridge opened to when it...

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• That old familiar feeling…

  March 1, 2025

  Considering that the roller coaster world lost a very highly acclaimed ride yesterday, I was thinking back to the time when I first had the chance to ride Kingda Ka's near twin, Top Thrill Dragster. During that trip, I also took my first ride on Millennium Force, which was the first traditional s...

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