Writing from Hoover, Alabama. News comes through Reuters of a magnitude 6 earthquake in Italy today. I know at least one Italian Resident, Pier, the master of the Koinup photo hosting service; and there are many others. You might want to check your own contacts, and pray for their safety. There will probably be a [...]

Normally, I confine myself to matters pertaining to Second Life.  I prefer to keep within that because it’s easy to write about things firsthand, by exploring or photographing; or I can talk about issues that I have a far clearer view on than all of the political spleen being vented in the name of “public [...]

It was on this day in 1912 that the Royal Mail Steamer Titanic of the White Star Line set sail from her berth in Southampton, ultimately sailing into history and legend as the worst passenger-liner disaster in the world.  Fascination with the ship and its passengers and crew continues even after a century of time [...]

“The only lasting beauty is the beauty of the heart.” – Robert Frost The unofficial poet laureate of New England was right in the essence of what he wrote; but there is physical beauty that endures if not lasts forever, and that can be found in architecture as well as the more portable arts.  For [...]

Girl Wonder Speaks…about Second Life®: The Most Interesting Avatar in the World. Strangely, she isn’t drinking Dos Equis…. Thanks to Hamlet Au

“The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined….  For to us a child is born, to us a son is given: and the government shall be on his shoulder: and his name shall be called [...]

“Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan….”– President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, December 8, 1941, speaking to a joint session of Congress. The world changed — massively — for Americans [...]

Apple has announced that Steve Jobs, their former CEO and the man who took Steve Wozniak’s hobbyist idea and helped usher in the era of the home computer, has died from his pancreatic cancer.  He was 56 years old. I like to think that Radio Shack had something to do with the age of the [...]

I wish I could really be there for a game or two — in the stands, of course — as the Detroit Tigers have won the American League Central by a very convincing 15 games over nearest rival Cleveland.  The Minnesota Twins, a team that usually has our number, fell apart this year, and occupies [...]

A moment of stepping into Real Life to offer sympathies to my Canadian readers, if any.  I learned a few minutes ago from the BBC that Jack Layton, the long-time leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party, lost his fight against a recurrence of cancer yesterday.  He was aged 61.  The leader of the left-most of [...]