Very cool film

Call it a kung-fu version of City of the Lost Children. Or maybe the Matrix meets Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Either way, it is perhaps the funnest indie fantasy film of the decade. The first five or so minutes are a little chintzy, but the rest is good.

Fall has come...

...to the Japanese maple outside my window.




Besides the Autumn poets sing
A few prosaic days
A little this side of the snow
And that side of the Haze --

A few incisive Mornings --
A few Ascetic Eves --
Gone -- Mr. Bryant's "Golden Rod" --
And Mr. Thomson's "sheaves."

Still, is the bustle in the Brook --
Sealed are the spicy valves --
Mesmeric fingers softly touch
The Eyes of many Elves --

Perhaps a squirrel may remain --
My sentiments to share --
Grant me, Oh Lord, a sunny mind --
Thy windy will to bear!

~Emily Dickinson


My favorite Fall poem remains Ms. Dickinson's The name -- of it -- is "Autumn"


The name -- of it -- is "Autumn" --
The hue -- of it -- is Blood --
An Artery -- upon the Hill --
A Vein -- along the Road --

Great Globules -- in the Alleys --
And Oh, the Shower of Stain --
When Winds -- upset the Basin --
And spill the Scarlet Rain --

It sprinkles Bonnets -- far below --
It gathers ruddy Pools --
Then -- eddies like a Rose -- away --
Upon Vermilion Wheels --

Nothing Gold Can Stay

The Chinese maple outside my window has turned to green and gold fire. Here in the city the days have become gray, but that suits me after twenty years in the desert.

by Robert Frost
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold,
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Decent

For those who like hard science fiction driven by flawed characters.

Mt Tabor

The Portland metropolitan area contains the remains of five extinct cinder cone volcanoes



On the summit



500,000 years will take the edge off a volcano



Looking back towards downtown

Again...

...we really are living in the future. However, our awareness of its dangers has not yet caught up to that reality. Globally, several cities have had their power disrupted by IT attacks, banking systems have been compromised, and in the US the national power grid could be systematically destroyed in with commonplace technologies...


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Gorge photos

All good things....

Two weeks after Macedonia I set out on vacation with my father and sister...



Northern Italy and Venice



















Lovely Heidelberg



Nuremberg the most German of cities. One of my favorite hangouts on this planet...







Last night in the Army



Drunken cretins



How many hours did we all spend on those benches waiting to get off work



The traditional hanging of the boots



I spent my last weekend in the Army in Vienna, a city of wedding cake buildings






America and Australia in the eyes of the Austrian Empire



Two days later, home in Nevada heading north...



Three generations of veterans: center, scout NCO WWII Pacific Theater; right, Air Force colonel Vietnam era; left, scout NCO Balkans peacekeeping era.

Berlin twenty years ago

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