From this morning’s walk…

Man walking down the sidewalk in the distance. Street crossing stripes in the foreground. One way sign and utility pole in the middle distance.

Not the decisive moment. Moments earlier the man had danced up to the utility pole and did a “Singing In The Rain” spin around it. I like that when I look at this image I see something nobody else sees.

From this morning’s walk…

American flag waving in the breeze, flying from right to left. End of flag tattered.

American flag waving in the breeze, flying from right to left. End of flag tattered.

American flag waving in the breeze, flying from right to left. End of flag tattered.

American flag waving in the breeze, flying from right to left. End of flag tattered.

I made this sequence of images because it’s my country’s birthday tomorrow. A sometimes great, sometimes not great nation built on an ideal that seems further out of reach than ever.

From this mornings walk…

Potted plant in early morning sun. Shadow is as gorgeous as the plant itself.

Because, you know, the shadow is so gorgeous…

Fresh from the market. Got some garlic scapes too. Gonna make a pesto with the garlic scapes, roast the “blooming cauliflower,” and serve them together. I think that will be quite nice…

The left hemisphere simply ignores, dismisses, and ultimately denies the existence of, anything it can’t pin down and measure.

— The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World by Iain McGilchrist a.co/bYJ7t8U

This prejudice against broadly true generalisations, on the basis that we can all think of examples that don’t conform, is one of the prevalent fallacies of our age. All knowledge is uncertain, but not therefore invalid.

— The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World by Iain McGilchrist a.co/bkVyR6I

I am certainly not a fan of the way wedding website designer case made its way to SCOTUS. That said, I imagine myself a website designer being approached by a white supremacist group to design their website and wonder, do I really want the government to force me to take them on as a client?

From this morning’s walk…

Mountains partially obscured by smoke haze from Canada.

Deflated purple and yellow star shaped metallic balloons.

Stylized nude portrait of woman with bright, broad brimmed orange hat, snake wrapped around her neck, with tail wrapped around one breast, in a women’s second hand clothing shop window.

Pastel colored, gauzy children’s dresses hanging in a shop window with the reflection of the photographer in the window layered over the top.

Closeup of a peace plant flower stamen.

Gray rectangular and square boards leaning against a brick wall.

I’m not sure why the app is saying uh-oh… was I an overachiever? Is that a bad thing? At any rate, my final tally of words written during the 1000 words of summer challenge. I think I have the beginnings of a novella. We’ll see.

About Manufacturing In Space

The perpetual growth paradigm is our norm for the foreseeable future…

In 50 years, you’ll see semiconductor foundries, fiber-optics, pharmaceutical production, and it’ll be happening at the equivalent scale of Taiwan,” said Delian, when I asked him to give me his best guess on what space will look like in 50 years. “You’ll basically have industrial parks in orbit, a few people who work in those industrial parks, some permanently, some who treat it more like an oil rig — three weeks in space, three weeks on Earth — basically shuttling back and forth.

About Manufacturing Pharmaceuticals In Space

Because the profit margin is Huge

Drug manufacturing is incredibly profitable. Potentially it’s the highest margin physical product literally ever, according to an article on Not Boring by Packy McCormick, from which I will draw extensively for the rest of this brief story. It’s so lucrative because, broadly, molecules that are cheap to produce can be sold for comparatively astronomical prices — some in the hundreds of billions of dollars per kilogram range — for the lifetime of the drug’s patent.

… so offensive, I don’t know where to begin.

Pasta alla Norma

My wife loves eggplant. Me, not so much. We both give this eggplant pasta dish a big thumbs up!

About Affirmative Action

I am a liberal with questions about Affirmative Action. Apparently, I am not alone.

Notably, given perceived partisan and racial divisions on the issue, pluralities of black Americans (47 percent), Democrats (48 percent), political liberals (46 percent), and Biden voters (46 percent) also oppose the consideration of racial background in college admissions.

30 Signs You Are Living In An Information Crappocalyps

Truth wears rags while deception travels on a private jet.

This is a must read…

Gravitational Waves Should Change How You See the World - The Atlantic

Every gravitational wave in that background the NANOGrav team found is humming through the very constitution of the space you inhabit right now. Every proton and neutron in every atom from the tip of your toes to the top of your head is shifting, shuttling, and vibrating in a collective purr within which the entire history of the universe is implicated. And if you put your hand down on a chair or table or anything else nearby, that object, too, is dancing that slow waltz.

… how awesome is this!

Canadian forest fire smoke returns…

Closeup of mountains obscured by smoke haze from Canadian wildfires. Roof and chimney in the foreground.

Closeup of sun rising above a house roof ridge line, dimmed by smoke haze from Canadian wildfires.

Not as bad as weeks ago. We live in trans apocalyptic times.

Also from this morning’s walk…

Corvid bird perched on the rim of a municipal trash can, looking at the photographer.

Corvid bird perched on the edge of a municipal trash can and tilting down to grab something.

Corvid bird perched on the edge of a municipal trash can, looking at the photographer, beak slightly open.

Corvid bird perched on the rim of a municipal trash can, head turned towards the photographer.

From this morning’s walk…

Closeup of globe allium bloom in the going to seed phase. The florets have become triangular shapes with rounded ends and edges. There is a multitude of them.

Closeup of an echinacea bloom opening. The edges spiral into the center.

Closeup of a moulded cardboard packing shape looking a little like a negative space spinal column.

Closeup of a large tropical plant type leaf.

Partially deflated purple and yellow star shaped balloons reflecting off one another to produce an orange hue in the middle.

Close up of a spaghetti tangle of metal channels at a demolition site.

Two antique lamp bases, each with a lamp shade attached and second lamp shade piled on top.

From last night while watching TV…

View from a living room into a dining room. Dog asleep on the floor in the foreground, table, chair and wine goblet in the distance, framed by the opening between rooms.

Closeup of table, chair and wine goblet from the previous image.

Having just finished season 2 of The Bear, this Chinese fortune is like a message from the gods… The Bear gods…

In the final episode of season 2 of The Bear, Sydney makes an omelette. She passed the eggs through a fine sieve after beating together, before cooking. I tried that this morning. Made a definite difference to the texture. Smoother, more consistent. Pro tip?

About My 50th High School Reunion :: Essays On Attention Paid

I realize, as I thumb through the pages of my yearbook and think about what was, that it isn’t only friends, co-workers and acquaintances that I left behind, I left numerous former selves behind. Islands of me scattered along the road I have walked these past 50 years.

Bonus images from this mornings walk… playing around with zooming in using the Lightroom camera app on the iPhone…

Close up of rapids in a local stream.

Closeup of rapids in a local stream.

Closeup of rapids in a local stream.

Really loving the new LR app… so much easier to move back and forth between device, social media and LR… The LR camera app has become my go to camera app…

From this morning’s walk…

Metal sculpture stork in median by the street.

Circular sticker for Blood Sugar Tunes on metal rail.

Close up of nose and eye of sculpture face. White.

Fading and new lilly blossoms.

Shirt made with collage of photographs printed fabric in a shop window.

Two yellow arrows, one hanging from a chain, the other painted on the asphalt beyond.

Closeup of a milkweed blossom.

About My 50th High School Reunion :: Essays On Attention Paid

What I realize as I think and write about this, is that all my life I have been arriving at places, doing the work of being me, making friends, having coworkers, and then, moving on, mostly without looking back. I left over bridges that were sometimes burned, but mostly just not maintained. They fell into disrepair then crumbled from neglect. This is habit from a lifetime of moving on. I did not live anywhere for more than five years until we moved into our current home in 2006.