On The Fly

In this episode, A Summer of Imagination: Roman Philosophers to Robots Imagination is both a mirror and a telescope, showing us who we are and where we might go. This summer, I traveled through centuries of imagination with an unlikely group of companions: Marcus Aurelius, Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Jules Verne, Jack London, and Isaac Asimov. Each unveiled a different world, but together they showed the power of stretching human thought. Let’s begin with Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor, writing nearly two thousand years ago in the 170s A.D. His Meditations didn’t take me to a far-off land but inward — a guide on how to govern oneself. He reminded me that while we can’t control the world, we can shape our own thoughts and actions. The most challenging journey is mastering the mind. Fast-forward to the 1700s and Jonathan Swift. In Gulliver’s Travels (1726), he used satire like a scalpel, holding up a funhouse mirror to politics and human pride. He made me la...

In this episode (170) – 5 Years Later . . . "Hey Google, turn on the kitchen lights." Today's blog post illustrates how people take for granted the conveniences of modern everyday life and miss the satisfaction of wilderness camping. (Photos on YouTube). We just returned home from our recent Sierra adventure. Little Lakes Valley in the Eastern Sierras camped at Gem Lakes - Tuesday, September 6, 2022. It had been five years since my last wilderness adventure. An unprecedented heat wave enveloped California and the West this Labor Day Weekend to mark the occasion. The first all CA—State Flex Alert was issued to prevent possible power outages for the West Coast grid. Why? It was HOT. During our drive up Route 395 North through Owens Valley, temperatures exceeded 110 degrees. Millions were drawing excess power for air conditioning. Anticipating cooler temperatures in our mountain retreat, we experienced unseasonably warm, beautiful weather for the Sierras. You may recall that...