Category: play

  • TBR 05-07-2026

    TBR 05-07-2026

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    “Platform Decay” is the latest installment of a series of books from Martha Wells nicknamed “The Murderbot Diaries.” I read it in two days and enjoyed it, but then I enjoyed all the books in the series, although I enjoyed the earlier books more than the later ones, if I’m honest. The books chronicle Murderbot’s… Read.

  • new ride, who dis?

    new ride, who dis?

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    I finally bought a recumbent bicycle. I’ve wanted one for years but the price always scared me away. Used recumbents cost more than a thousand dollars; new recumbents cost more than two thousand. It was hard enough to make myself spend more than three hundred on a nice Trek bicycle back in 1998. But Monday… Read.

  • TBR 4/9/2026

    TBR 4/9/2026

    Last week, my pile of books to be read (TBR) was down to just two. Today, it’s up to seven. At the top of my pile: Right now I’m powering my way through “Solaris” by Stanislaw Lem. I read this science fiction classic when I was in high school, didn’t understand it at all. The… Read.

  • walking on sunshine

    walking on sunshine

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    There were signs early Monday morning that the weather was going to be extraordinary, but I had no idea until I got out into it how glorious it would turn out to be. Sunny, calm, so pleasantly warm it could have been any day in the middle of summer. I just loafed along the trail… Read.

  • to be determined

    to be determined

    I want to spend the morning sitting on the sofa with a book, nursing a big mug of very black, very strong coffee. It’s the perfect day for it, cold and rainy and windy. Going out to do almost anything today would be no fun at all. I can stay in, I can stretch out… Read.

  • IAT – CLEANUP DAY! — 2/25/2026

    IAT – CLEANUP DAY! — 2/25/2026

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    Sometimes I hike a segment of the Ice Age Trail, but I don’t finish it. I leave it half done. I have the best of intentions to return to the segment to finish it off, but then I don’t. Now that I think about it, I’m like this with washing clothes, too. I can wash… Read.

  • IAT Devil’s Staircase / Arbor Ridge – 02/23/2026

    IAT Devil’s Staircase / Arbor Ridge – 02/23/2026

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    Today was a good day to walk a couple nearby segments of the Ice Age Trail. I wanted a segment close to home — an hour away by car or less — because I felt like doing more walking than driving this afternoon. Opening my guidebook, I started flipping through pages of maps in nearby… Read.

  • a puzzle to pass the time

    a puzzle to pass the time

    The cold spell broke last weekend. It broke so hard that temperatures climbed into the 60s on Monday. Insane. To take advantage of the balmy weather, I’ve been tromping around anywhere the ground is solid enough to walk on. There’s not a lot of that right now. But for four weeks, it rarely got warmer… Read.

  • IAT University Ridge

    IAT University Ridge

    Oh I am so very sore this morning! And a little bit tired, even after a good night’s sleep. I spent the better part of five hours yesterday chopping up brush and stacking it in piles which towered over my head. It’s getting harder to recover from that kind of workout than I did when… Read.

  • a fine evening at Alchemy

    a fine evening at Alchemy

    Way, way back (peers through the mists of time) in 2006, My Darling B worked on the west side of town, almost in Middleton, at the DMV. I worked at a bank in the center of town, right on capitol square. Every morning, she would drop me off on the square, then continue on to… Read.

photo of the author and the author's best friend