There's no Facebook access, but I can get to LiveJournal. It's my fourth day in China this year and I've arrived at the university guest house. I'm more or less ready to teach my course more tomorrow. More ready, that is, if they actually send a student helper over to meet me or otherwise let me know where and when I am to have my class and how I ( Read more... )

Phoenix airport terminal 3 has a retro mural depicting airliners of the 1950's and 1960's, flying at improbable, angles above a faux-naif Phoenix landscape. It was December 17th, and I was there to collect my mother-in-law and niece. Four incoming flights were funneling into two rental cars to proceed to Tucson, and my daughter's college ( Read more... )

Hong Kong is built primarily on an hilly island and an equally hilly peninsula, between which is one of the world's busiest and most beautiful harbors. There are three vehicular tunnels and two rapid transit tunnels spanning the harbor, while bridges link the mainland to outlying islands, including the island which houses HK's dull but highly ( Read more... )

1. Samuel Beckett, who filled my first two years of college ( Read more... )

.. so now I write about a book. For my flight home from a business meeting in Minneapolis, I purchased "Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys" a compilation of stories and memoirs by sex workers, edited by David Henry Sterry. The airport bookstore prominently featured L. Ron Hubbard and Newt Gingrich; it seemed like the least I could do. I was ( Read more... )

I will be checking in to LiveJournal less often.

I am currently at the apogee of a five day arc of leisure in Key West. What could have been a busier family reunion has wound up with just the essentials: my wife and daughter and my sister and her daughter. Bro-in-law is infatuated with new vacation home in New Hampshire, so he stayed up North. Aged aunt and uncle, well we just couldn't convince ( Read more... )

Mary and I just got back from a quick weekend trip to Calistoga, where we had mud baths and massages at Golden Haven, a place we've stayed at several times in the last 25 years, plus she brought her bike group there once, and I once stopped in for a massage on my way back from a day hike and, er, paper-airplane contest on nearby Mt. St. Helena. It ( Read more... )

I am back from traveling in China. I will soon post a link to my web site, where I will post my travelogue. Photos are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/bcarasik

does this show up?