Driving on Route 7 in Northern Virginia in late November poses a special challenge. There are a few days when the sun rises directly in line-of-sight down the road. Because it is so early in the morning the sun is low in the sky and blinds drivers. Traffic slows down as you come over certain [...]
Ridiculous comparisons, slightly useful thoughts
Sometime in the past year I read several books from a modern author. The author is an immigrant, the books are award winning, the prose is exceptional, and the books are unrelentingly depressing. This person is supposedly writing about a particular immigrant experience, but the whole canon was utterly alien to me. I spent some [...]
Economics of a skein of yarn, or thinking about the Industrial Revolution. Take your pick.
I’ve been doing research for one of my fiction stories and came across this article in the process. https://www.fashionroundtable.co.uk/news/why-skills-are-more-important-than-ever The author of this article visits a ‘mill’ in Wales. This mill does not grind wheat; it is a place for weaving cloth out of sheep fleece, with all the steps that that implies. The article [...]
Astronomer, geologist, cartographer, agriculturist, missionary, warrior for justice …
This guy was born in the south Tyrolean Alps in 1645 in Segno. His brilliance was recognized early and he was sent to school. When he was fifteen his father died. His family liquidated their land to keep him in school. (He had three sisters and no brothers so his sisters were probably taken care [...]
What day is this?
I slept in four different places over the course of sixteen days. That's going to be my excuse for not figuring out what day it is and whether I've put up a post. Also, WordPress has done something to me, so that I have to reset the font every single time I start a new [...]
Janey's blog 