People’s concept of space and personal bubbles sure has changed a lot in recent months. A new phrase, “social distancing”, crashed upon our awareness like a tsunami on an unsuspecting seashore. Remember the good old days before the phrase? It hardly seems possible that its mainstream introduction took place onlyContinue Reading
Rusted metal and fragments of splintered wood littered the mountainside. In a cave opening high above, an old water heater-shaped cylinder peered down below. A steel cable still taut so many decades later stretched across the trail from cliffs above to scree below. Old weathered pieces of wood previously actedContinue Reading
I pull out a stack of receipts with 8-digit numbers printed across the top. At the same time, I pull up the last period’s winning numbers on my computer screen. And then I methodically work through them to see if I’ve won any money this time. I transitioned to leadContinue Reading
Somehow or another, I’ve made it this far before hearing the story that every Chinese child learns about New Year. Apparently, a monster named Nian (year) came out of hiding and wrecked havoc at the start of every annual lunar cycle. People hid in their homes and refused to goContinue Reading
What a revelation! How many times had I seen that sign and not realized what my friend had just pointed out to me. The long seemingly random letters meant something. You just had to read them from right to left. In English, that would be backwards. However, Chinese used toContinue Reading
Russia has left its mark on Kyrgyzstan. During the same time period that Russia sold Alaska to the United States, it was gaining greater control over much of Central Asia. Heavy Russian influence had begun to take hold in the area by the 1850s. By 1876, the entire nation ofContinue Reading
The Second World War left its mark all over the place. It truly was a global war in its impact. Throughout my life, I have experienced personal glimpses of WWII. Some of the glimpses came from reading and history. However, others hit closer to home. My maternal grandfather served inContinue Reading
As a person who grew up in Alaska, I can get by with pretty sparse toilet facilities. My mother somehow used to hold her bladder for hours refusing to use roadside outhouses. Me? No way! I’ll use the outhouse. In addition, I am a hiker. I say where there areContinue Reading
This writer hails from Alaska. Many of us Alaskans often tend to think of ourselves as something of our own country. Such things happen when you have to pass through/over another nation to even get to a corner or edge of your own. But in many ways, we actually haveContinue Reading
Jean-Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise believed it was. To him, space was the final frontier. And don’t get me wrong, outer space would definitely be an epic frontier to find oneself exploring. But I am talking about a different kind of space. I am talking about the expanses, orContinue Reading