goatee
highlanders
°2026.08.13.Thu | Asia (Korea and Japan)
We are back from our trips to Daejeon, Tokyo, and Seoul. It’s been decades since I’ve been to Japan (in 1998 and 2001), and fourteen years since our trip to Seoul, about which I posted on korean food and Koreans. Some quick thoughts from 2026:
- It was exceptionally hot and muggy; fortunately, our time in Tokyo and Seoul was a bit cooler than when in Daejeon.
- We often escaped the heat via museums. Korea has excellent and inexpensive museums in both cities.
- South Korea was not vegetarian friendly, especially Daejeon.
- In Japan, we took a day trip from where we were staying in Hatagaya to hike some of Mitake Gorge, well worth it!
- At the Bic Camera
superstore I purchased a set of Kowa
6x30 porro binoculars—Bic was also the only place we could find fine
tweezers with which to remove a tick from our hike.
- Porro prisms are hard to find in the US, but I prefer them. And the Kowa’s have eyeglass-friendly 20 mm eye relief. (I gave my old 7x35 binos, that I purchased from Kmart when I was in high school, to friends. They too were made in Japan and of surprising quality.)
BTW: Most of my current photography is HDR, which is now visible in my gallery thanks to this sigal plugin. Such images should show nicely on HDR devices and even as embedded here.
°2026.04.20.Mon | 15 Minute Cities
As part of planning for the next chapter of life, I used Claude to create a script that pulls public data sources to assess possible 15-minute neighborhoods on the East Coast. I was inspired to use the densities of Little Libraries along with CityNerd’s favorite walk, bike, and transit scores, but both of those data sources are proprietary! Fortunately, I found other sources (click “About data”), for which I am grateful.
I starred a few of the cities I’m familiar with as a reference. I live in Cambridge (too expensive), and visited Pittsburgh (good value, though I wish there were more sunny days), and Asheville (perhaps too small). No city improves on Pittsburgh across all variables (which you can expand, filter, and sort), but I will have to look at Columbus, Ohio more carefully.
Other resources
- Numbeo cost of living
°2025.11.17.Mon | Arboretum in Autumn
Speaking of autumn colors, we saw this beautiful gingko tree at the Harvard Arnold Arboretum.
°2025.10.27.Mon | Autumn Colors at Mt. Auburn Cemetery
Visiting Mt. Auburn Cemetery before Halloween is one of my favorite things to do in the autumn.
I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew:
Of wind I sang, a wind there came and in the branches blew.
Beyond the Sun, beyond the Moon, the foam was on the Sea,
And by the strand of Ilmarin there grew a Golden Tree. — J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
°2025.07.08.Tue | Train to Portland
We try visit Portland at least once a year, always by car. This year we took the Amtrak Downeaster. The benefit is we didn’t have to worry about driving, parking, and traffic. We did have to be a bit more patient in waiting for public transit, but that was fine: Amtrak was pleasant and three buses regularly run up and down Congress Street, Portland’s main thoroughfare. For example, on our last day we checked out of La Quinta at 11:00 am, walked 20 minutes to the train station, hiked along the nearby Fore River Park Trail, cooled off at the station, got on the train, got into Boston’s North Station, stretched our legs along the nice walk across the Charles River Damn and Revere Park to Cambridge Crossing, got dinner at Bon Me, then took the #69 from Lechmere to within a block of our building. We missed stopping at Fort Williams Park on the way back, but we got our fill of views and old battlements via the ferry to Peaks Island and Battery Steele. (BTW: the Wikipedia article on the latter still uses my photo from our 2015 visit!)
The most important thing, though, is that Nixie enjoyed playing fetch on the beach.
°2025.04.22.Tue | New Orleans, LA
We’re back from NOLA, where I presented at the 2025 Popular Culture Assocation Conference. I didn’t care for the French Quarter (too many tourists and addicts) but I did note a few things, that can be seen in my photos.
- We made much use of the 12 and 57 tram and bus lines, respectively.
- The RTA public transit ferry ride to Algiers Point was a nice and inexpensive way to float on the Mississippi.
- Stores were more casual about dogs than those in Boston; the buses were okay and the trams more strict—even when we had Nixie in a bag, as permitted by policy.
- Folks there like their floats! Weekend nights are lit by open air buses and floats full of women drinking and partying (in Ward 7 at least).
- City Park is not a nice walking-about park; rather, it’s a bunch of athletic fields.
- Audubon Park is a lovely place to walk about (designed by an Olmsted).
- The Garden District is beautiful.
- I enjoyed Oak St. neighborhood, in Ward 14.
- Breads on Oak is one of the best vegan bakeries I’ve ever been to.
°2025.03.10.Mon | Newport, RI
We took a weekend trip to Newport, RI. It wasn’t freezing, but it could be windy. Nonetheless, we enjoyed some beautiful views, including those from cliff walk, the sunset from old observation tower at Brenton Point, and of the bay at Fort Adams.
°2025.02.04.Tue | Wood and water
One of my favorite zen proverbs is: Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water. I suspect, however, that I am romanticizing these activities because I can imagine doing them mindfully. Today, the tasks would be: “sit in front of computer and go to meetings.”
°2024.10.22.Tue | Fresh Pond’s dog pond in autumn
