This picture has been in the can for some time, but just today we realized that it’s in fact Hallowe’en, so we thought it would be appropriate. It was either this or Skully:

And since he shares a nickname and a not-so-passing resemblance to half the guys I went to college with, the choice was obvious.

My organizational skills lately have been not-so-good. Projects pile up: the new AirPort blinks amber accusingly at me, the BITWRATHPLOOB glowers from a shelf in the kitchen, demanding to be boxed up, and now I find that I have let an important anniversary pass with no word.

This week marks exactly four years since I drove [...]

Six years ago this week I arrived in a little town on the Pampas of Argentina. San Jorge was small and remote enough that I was regarded as something of an oddity, so during the first several days following my arrival I underwent frequent interrogations on a variety of topics. These invariably touched on comparative [...]

Today Slovenia honors Rudolf Maister, best known as the defender of Maribor. As the first world war wound down, Maister was in command of the headquarters of the region around that city, in what is now the eastern part of Slovenia. As the eventual victors prepared to redraw the map of Europe, Maister gathered around [...]