Warmth

By Vladimir Brezina

The sun rises above the horizon, and immediately its warming rays disperse the morning chill. It’s going to be another hot one!

Warmth

A response to this week’s Photo Challenge, Warmth.

Merry Christmas!

By Vladimir Brezina and Johna Till Johnson

Merry Christmas!(Johna enjoying our traditional Christmas Eve dinner of roast goose, red cabbage, and mashed potatoes…)

Merry Christmas to all our readers!!

It’s All About the Ideas

By Johna Till Johnson

Haitian fishermen (photo Ruth Fremson/The New York Times)

“Ya gotta have ideas,” the cab driver said, followed by an uproarious belly-laugh. “Money’s not worth nothing unless you have ideas.”

I laughed along with him. It was impossible not to: the man had the most contagious laughter I’d ever heard. And he had ideas. Boy, did he have ideas.

He wasn’t what I expected when I got into the cab on that overcast, dreary December day a few days before Christmas. All I could see of him was a dark face, beard streaked with a bit of gray. He was eating a late lunch when I got in, and didn’t return my greeting.

So I figured I wasn’t going to hear much from him—and that was fine. I had errands to get done, and worries on my mind. After I told him the destination, I figured that was the last exchange we’d have. Wrong!

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The Turn of the Year

By Vladimir Brezina

I mean, of course, the ancient turn of the year, the Winter Solstice—not that newfangled, artificial New Year on January 1st.

The Winter Solstice occurs today, December 21st, at 6:03 PM EST (New York time).  This year, especially, we look forward to the days finally getting longer…

Winter sunset at the Central Park Reseervoir

… and we are still waiting for our first real snowstorm, which at least for a day or two makes everything brighter :-)

Happy Winter Solstice from us in NYC!

Golden

By Vladimir Brezina

Golden light in New York Harbor…

Tug silhouettes
In the Kill van Kull
Bayonne Bridge
Turning her aroundFrom the Hidden Harbor Tour, September 2013.

A contribution to Ailsa’s travel-themed photo challenge, Golden.

Yellow

By Vladimir Brezina

A yellow kayak, for a change…

Yellow kayak

A response to this week’s Photo Challenge, Yellow.

Christmas Twinkle

By Vladimir Brezina

This week’s Photo Challenge is Twinkle.

And, at this time of the year, there’s no other possible response than this—

Christmas tree lit. 2011Christmas twinkle, 2012Christmas twinkle, 2012

More twinkling photos from Christmas 2011 and Christmas 2012 are here and here.

Christmas dinner 2013 in the Florida Everglades

And, so as not to get bored with twinkling lights year after year, this for a change was Christmas 2013—

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We are working on Christmas 2014. Stay tuned!

Travel Theme: Freedom

By Vladimir Brezina

Ready for adventure!
(Full story of that day in the Florida Everglades is here.)

A contribution to Ailsa’s travel-themed photo challenge, Freedom.

Guest Post: The Art of Art

A few days ago we posted “Thanksgiving Musings: We’re Grateful for that Still, Small Voice…,” in which we referred to a wonderful essay by writer and adventurer Willis Eschenbach. He generously gave us permission to reprint the essay in full on our blog. Here it is. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach

With Thanksgiving coming up, I thought I’d write about something other than science. A few weekends ago, I went by kayak across Tomales Bay from Marshall to Lairds Landing, where I lived for nine months or so when I was about twenty-five with a wonderful friend and his lady and their son. It had been fifteen years since I was last there, I’d gone for the wake not long after my friend died. I went on this trip with a long-time shipmate of mine, a gifted artist, builder, and blacksmith.

Now, there are lots of words for the gradations of friendship—friends, acquaintances, work-mates, BFFs, room-mates, colleagues, and the like. “Shipmate” means more than any of those to me. It means someone who I’ve been through some storms with at sea.

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Gone, But Not Forgotten

By Vladimir Brezina

Gone…

Twin Towers

… but not forgotten.

Twin Towers Memorial

But memories are not enough—the new Tower has risen!

New World Trade Center tower 1
New World Trade Center tower 2

A contribution to this week’s Photo Challenge, Gone, But Not Forgotten.