Some Final Thoughts on 2014
This year is about to come to an end. Just a few hours left and it will gasp its final breath. We will count down the seconds, watch a glowing ball of light descend a few feet, we will kiss our…
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Latest Posts
How Raising a Toddler is Not Unlike Living in Jurassic Park
There are so many things that I love about being the father of a toddler. Toddlers are wonderful. They are also scary. The “terrible twos” is not just the period when your child learns to throw tantrums and deflate into…
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Book Review | Log of the Cutty Sark by Basil Lubbock
The Log of the Cutty Sark examines the career of one of the greatest sailing ships to ever ply the water. Written by Basil Lubbock, this book takes a blow by blow account of the ship’s construction, service, near wrecks,…
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Basil Lubbock | Historian, Author, Sailor, Soldier (1876 – 1944)
Basil Lubbock is possibly the world’s most prolific author on 19th century merchant ships, penning dozens of books and articles on the height of commercial sailing in the West, including, among other things, the Famous Tea Clipper Races. Yet, for someone…
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A Dispatch to the Future: Horses, Robots, & The End of the World
What I am writing in this post has already become irrelevant. Writers have an uneasy relationship with time. They often aren’t appreciated until they cross their arms and lay down in a coffin. Writing, by its very nature, is communication with…
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Visiting the Cutty Sark in Greenwich, England
I first heard the story of the Cutty Sark and the Famous Tea Clipper Races shortly after I began working for a North American tea importing company. I learned that in the mid 1800s British merchants were so keen to…
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Then, Who Won the Space Race?
My last post on why “America Did Not Win The Space Race” ruffled some feathers on Reddit and Twitter. So before I go further let me put a few things straight: 1. Americans walked on the Moon. Period. Moon landing…
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America Did Not Win The Space Race
I love space. The untamedness of it. The danger. It is the definition of bigness. It lends us perspective and can make us afraid. It is the final frontier. Actually… no. To say that space is the final frontier implies…
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Happiness is Bunk
Sometimes while sipping a tonic of cynicism I wonder if our notion of happiness is just a marketing campaign dreamt up to sell laundry detergent and tickets to a certain mouse infested theme park. Companies tease us with the chimerical…
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How to Handle a Bad Review: Part 3 (When They’re Right)
People will tell you that your writing sucks. Sometimes those people will be right. Two previous posts have talked about what to do when the reviewer is clearly suffering from personal bias that has nothing to do with your work,…
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