Steeplechasing as a sport? Sounds like what I do, although it's not even remotely like what I do.

In the vein of great architects like van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, Michael Graves is putting out his own distinctive furnishings -- such as inexpensive clothes drying racks available exclusively at Target. His logo looks just like his buildings. I don't like his buildings, but I'm pleased with my new drying rack and tie/belt hanger. No more undershirts hanging from every extrusion in my room. And no more wasting energy and quarters on the dryer. But now I have to figure out when in the washing cycle to manually pour in the fabric softener...

happy 25th!

Happy 25th birthday to the CD, which is only one year my elder but outnumbers me by about 200 billion.

Cappadocia -- another reason to visit Turkey. After the apparent vegetarian friendliness of its cuisine, as I discovered in Dorset.

Anyone for wine tasting in Oklahoma or South Dakota? The number of wineries in the US has more than doubled since 2000.

Looks, I'm in the news!

Chicken or the egg?

For all my concern about minimizing my environmental footprint, I know I could be doing better by minimizing the energy my computer eats up. Perhaps Climate Savers Computing will have some food for thought. Even Amtrak's summer magazine was devoted to green lifestyles, and got me thinking about sustainable consumption of fish, something else I've been trying to ignore. America is getting better on some fronts each time I return...

Except perhaps in the case of Apple. Of all companies.

Despite the heinous exchange rate of 2 bucks to the pound, I did luck out in buying my Belgian chocolate before major price hikes. Quelle disastre!

In Cali, a house made of straw will spare you air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter, allow you to have European deep-set windows and doors, and it won't kill you during the Big One.

white light/black rain

Having just come from Germany, a country still severely haunted by the memory and guilt of its atrocities, I am embarrassed to realize how much more in denial America is about its own atrocities. Looking back at my history classes, I can hardly remember spending any time on the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It's not censorship, but some national urge not to dwell on what we did. And perhaps the lack of an emotional reaction to White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the Sundance shows that we're not prepared to deal with the emotional consequences of it -- we believe that we're above guilt.

The navigator of the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima responded to the film, "The story about the survivors of this has been told many, many times. It doesn't change. And this is just another story about survivors. I don't think there will be much reaction to it at all." But according to the filmmaker, survivors have hardly been heard from at all. And many refuse to share their stories with the public.

"Okazaki also found a plaque where the Nagasaki bomb detonated that said everyone within a one kilometer area was killed instantly -- except an 8-year-old girl who had fallen asleep in a bomb shelter." He tracked her down, but she refused to talk. Can you imagine waking up when you were 8 and emerging to find that your entire world was in ruins? I can understand not wanting to dwell on it. But the American people need to hear these stories. We're not above guilt, yet we feel none.

Cute and vaguely novel, but otherwise, what's the point of recording to your iPod?

Front yard lawns? I want one!