Virtually Home

Moments ago, I experienced a tragic data loss in transferring photos from my iPhone to my computer. I guess nothing better was to be expected, since the trip started off with my forgetting my camera -- an unforgivable failure. The photos posted here are the few that survived iPhoto's latest travesty. They may or may not be misrepresenting the order of events. For instance, the picture at left was taken on the flight home. Ahem. We, on analyzing the forecast for Thanksgiving Day, decided to skip town early and, when I had succeeded in attending the appointments I'd made for my "two" days in Tulsa, we all converged on the airport and took off for Florida. The way out of town was bumpy, and we were cutting through alternating clouds and clear sky all the way up to 10,000 feet. Each time we broke through the clouds, we were surrounded by towers of cloud. It was cavernous. Water streaming over the windshield and the wings from the condensation in the clouds. I couldn...

In a country without Thanksgiving, there's not even a pretense of delaying Christmas until its allotted time. Decorations have been going up for weeks now -- lights hung from the sides of buildings and wires strung overhead were the first go show up. Yesterday they started putting up huge trees in Place de la Victoire and by the cathedral near my house. Also coming to Place Pey-Berland is what appears to be an ice-skating rink? I'm interested to see how this is going to pan out. I was told that it will rain all winter, which I interpreted to mean it will never get cold enough to freeze. I guess I didn't expect ice-skating. Although I've never been fond of even the idea of ice-skating -- all that strapping blades to your feet and gliding about and falling on your face seems to lend itself pretty handily to getting digits cut off. But since Thanksgiving is finally upon us, I'll stop feeling weird about seeing Christmas decorations. I'll even be posting pictures...