Card games are a great way to have fun. They allow you to combine strategy, chance, and teamwork. The shuffling of cards at the start of a game is a comforting sound to me. I enjoy the very act of shuffling. In this, I tend to use only one corner of the cards in a…

Transportation has opened the world. The ability to rapidly get from one place to another has made the world wholly accessible. Planes, trains, boats, cars, scooters, gondolas, etc. cross every imaginable barrier and transcend mortal time. It is now possible to see a person separated by continents in a single day. It is possible to…

Fall leaves are the grandest sunset. There is a gradual change from yellow to orange to red that follows the progression of the sun setting over several months as the days get shorter and crisper. When the leaves start to turn, the weather also has shifted, and this brings an exciting feeling to the air.…

The East Coast of Taiwan is 24km from the promised land. It is a magical area of sapphire blue sea, emerald green vegetation, diamond clouds, and an obsidian road. There are little towns and streams that run fresh and short into the warm sea. There are jagged cliffs that fall directly into the pounding surf.…

Canyon streams are paradise. They are the most improbable of things, running water in the desert. Particularly in the Grand Canyon, you can traverse miles and miles with not even the barest hint of water in anything. Then, you come around a corner. You descend one more switchback, and the echoing sound of water trickling…

Running gives the best high ever. Admittedly, I don’t do anything else that gives a high (maybe caffeine), but man, running makes you feel good. Running is a great way to stay in shape. It requires a particular kind of shape to be in. There are plenty of people that are in excellent shape but…

Black ink in a journal smells erudite. There is something about the combination of the black ink with the pages that gives a journal the smell of a library, and this evokes a sense of all of all the thought that went into the pages of the books and journals. It is just a good smell…

Irrigation gives us so much power over our world. It allows you to take land and bring life to it. It is a great responsibility because it is borrowing water that would otherwise go elsewhere, but it gives you the chance to bring life or even paradise to an area. Irrigation brings water to plants,…