My mom sent me an email full of photos of a rock in Iowa, covered with patriotic art. The email had this message: I'm told that the...

I've mentioned in past posts that Lyons Peak (just east of the town of Jamul) has four web cameras on it. These cameras update every tw...

The news this morning is not so good. Together with a friend (Dick F.) who is very experienced in concrete construction, I went over the ro...

…and simultaneously ponder the future of mankind.

Update and bump: Simon M. writes with a question about exactly what “thread count” actually means. There are two ways one could interpret t...

To be fair, there is some legitimate debate about which tyrant was the worst of the lot. Specifically, there are some reputable historians...

Ready for the final inspection! The inspector is scheduled to visit on Monday morning, and with any luck at all, we'll pass the inspect...

This is almost getting to be routine – one day after another of great progress! As of this morning, we are getting dangerously close to bein...

From Jackie B.: These are actual quotes taken from Federal Government employee performance evaluations. Sadly, probably 98% of them are stil...

We took our usual walk “up the hill” this morning, but the view was anything but ordinary. It was crisp – cool and humid – as the sun peeke...

Ah, another day of great progress on our safe house! The bottom part of the form for the roof overhang has been completed, and the bottom w...

The Zaca fire is huge, over a month old, and it's a long way (over 150 miles, up north of Santa Barbara) from our home – and yet the smo...

After still more trials and tribulations – all involving misdeeds or failures to act by my contractor – work on our safe-house is underway a...

From my reader Jim M., an eloquent bit of political humor: A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and ...

The community of Jamul Casino opponents focused for years on the man they nicknamed “Lyin' Leon”: Leon Acebedo, the chairman of the Jamu...

Steve K. sent me an email yesterday, containing this response to something positive I'd said about open source software: From your menti...

Jim Louderback is a very well-known figure in the world of technology journalism. He's just resigned as editor-in-chief of the venerabl...

One of my more geeky readers passed this along: How To Catch a Lion in the Sahara Desert Theoretical Physics Methods The Dirac method : ...

We're going to do something a little different this week – this time our puzzler is about history, not science or technology. Post your...

Three (out of five) people who answered got this right: what you see is the skydiver accelerating both downward and backwards. I've met ...