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Unwinding the Mystery of Strandbeests

Jan 27, 2024
Dutch kinetic sculpture artist Theo Jansen’s wind-powered strandbeests are the inspiration for my next LEGO project. From 1990 onwards, he has taken these strand (Dutch for beach) creatures through twelve periods of evolution. Inspired, I want to build thematically similar creatures using LEGO.

Japan 2024: Plan for a Plan

Dec 27, 2023
I don’t do bucket lists or trips of a lifetime. Places are not to be consumed like products; the journey is not an inconvenience. Travel is iterative: each trip is a prototype for the next time I visit an area; there’s no pressure to tick off all the boxes.

A Day for Selling Vacations

Dec 26, 2023
When I was growing up in England, the day after Christmas was a day for relaxing and eating leftovers. Television advertising, finally freed from promoting the excesses of Christmas consumption, switched to hawking packaged vacations.

12 Months of Microposts: 2023

Dec 17, 2023
I celebrate the little details of every day in my Microposts. In this post I somewhat arbitrarily chose one micropost for each month of 2023.

In the Footsteps of Border Raiders, a Saint, and Vera

Sep 11, 2023
Next week, my partner, two friends, and I will be hiking a section of the Reivers Way in Northumberland, England, from inn to inn over five days. The Border Reivers were notorious for terrorizing communities in the area around the border between Scotland and England from the 13th to the 17th centuries. Some of them… Continue reading In the Footsteps of Border Raiders, a Saint, and Vera

Passport Covers

Jul 15, 2023
Travel influencers urge us to buy unnecessary gear, such as a document organizer, a hotel room blacklight, or an in-flight clip-on cup holder. I add passport covers to that list.

Avoiding Russia

Jun 5, 2023
In normal times a flight from Minneapolis to Tokyo would take us through Russian airspace for several hours. This is no longer possible.

Japan Loose-Ends List

May 28, 2023
Here’s a list of planning details that needed attention as we got closer to traveling to Japan with our nephew and his dad.