Life

Favorite listens and reads from the past month or so. Forgiveness, Practically Paperless, Global Values, and Quantum Physics among other topics.

Here in Arizona’s Mogollon Rim country, we had unseasonably warm weather in October and some incredible sunsets. Put those two together and getting out with the camera had to happen. I settled on a spot I have visited before on the Salt River just south of Sagauro Lake. The outing turned into and exercise in flexibility when things don’t go as planned, something all photographers are familiar with.

It took me a while to get through this book only because life interrupted. If not, I surely would have been bleary-eyed at the end of a binge listening weekend. It would have been my loss as this book is meant to be savored like a fine wine in perfect union with an equally fine meal and milieu. Mr. Towles is a master, it is that good.

Welcome to the new website, complete with a new look and feel. I can hear you asking, “Why?” Simply put, it was time.

The old website had grown too cumbersome and slow, aside from looking dated as websites go. The decision to shift the hosting to a new provider for performance reasons opened the door. Soon, I started thinking about all the things I didn’t like aside from its speed and the hosting relationship. Before I knew it, I had a new site in mind, one that would …

Recently, we took a short trip to Sierra Vista to visit family and take in the local scenery. Unexpectedly, the trip also turned into a journey back in time.

I’ve re-engaged with an old hobby. It’s one of those things I got into years ago as a consumer enthusiast, meaning I am nowhere near being knowledgeable about it. I know that sounds strange, but I never really had the interest in going deep, I just wanted the benefit. In this case, that means I press a button and hear things. Yep, I am back into radio scanning.

I’ve recently re-adopted Feedly as a blog reading tool. Over the years I’ve used Feedly, Inoreader, and Flipboard. I haven’t used a blog aggregator since 2017, choosing instead to meander through the infoverse by momentary whim. Lately, however, I’ve decided to get more intentional about what I read.

A masterful dissection of the Constitutional Convention and the personalities, issues, and competitions that drove it. While the American constitution has long been heralded as a champion of human rights and aspirations, it is not perfect. There are some obvious questions that result from the end product, including why the slavery issue was not resolved and how separation of powers was intended to function vs. how it actually functions.

This solid work examines the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and John Marshall, which was as contentious as one would expect a rivalry between a staunch state’s rights proponent and a Federalist could be. It also serves as a lens through which to view the national dilemma as expounded by Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and others. Both Jefferson and Marshall were right of course, and both were wrong; a lesson we would do well to take to heart today.