InMotion

Field Notes, on the road, July 2019 Edited on Wed, July 31: the picture caption is improved!    Happy about getting an early start today.   We were eating a sandwich lunch in a parking lot (because the rest area was for “cars only”) when our son Jon called.   He and his significant other Samantha and her sisters and parents are getting ready for our visit.   Tomorrow the fourth leg of our trip (each leg is about 300 miles) will land us in State College, Pennsylvania, the former home of Jon’s partner/girlfriend and current home of her parents, Stan and Laura.   Our itinerary for the visit, Jon tells us,   will include swimming, tubing, grilling and FIREFLIES! Amos Lee put out an interesting album in 2013, and it started playing for my dinner-prep music here in the Lodge (our pet name for our travel trailer) when I clicked on a playlist I apparently had made back then and had forgotten about.   I just listened to it while “cooking dinner” ...

While listening to NPR this morning I heard an interview with an Englishman talking about Brexit.   He wants to proceed, get on with it, and he mentioned the “nanny state”.   I immediately thought about myself and my state of retirement, wondering if I am doing enough, or anything, to contribute or at this point am I just basking, taking in the fruits of my many lucky breaks.   This seems to relate to my writing, which I struggle with constantly, not really knowing if I can do it.   This is what I do as I exist in my self-contained vessel of negative self-regard.   Whatever the topic (medical practice, bicycling, volunteering at the shop, owning an airstream, writing, reading…come to think of it, EVERYTHING!), I consider as activities that I do inferiorly.   So just now, I am thinking that this has got to be false, because that just cannot be true.   So I’m calling bullshit on myself, and just now plan to continue writing.   Yesterday, I re-re...

The Black Keys have a new album out, called Let’s Rock Guitar rules on this one.   No keys this time, white or black.   The title of the record is everything.   Rock, as in garage rock, heavy rock, old-school rock. Melodic, entrancing.   An ancient air guitarist, I was immediately on the fret board, playing hard as those currents of electric rhythmic wizardry   resonated deliciously, the power   chords dancing.   As the Keys start their upcoming tour this fall, I suspect there will be two options at a show: move your body or leave.   Here’s something from the department of ignorance or forgetfulness:   I actually thought that the Black Keys were two guitarists !   No, it’s Patrick Carney on drums and Dan Auerbach on guitar, wow. After touring extensively behind their previous work, including their incredible albums Brothers and El Camino, they apparently needed a break from each other. Now, they’re out with their first studio album...

It's hot here in New Orleans!  This is my first July here in the city and I am finding I can deal with it reasonably well.  I have become more interested in the weather because what can be done is so conditioned by it. I used to think that in addition to the temperature, it was all about "the humidity" but really it's better to say that it's all about how much water vapor is in the air.  Yesterday evening, the humidity was 48% and the temperature was 93.  This yielded a “RealFeel” temp of 97. The RealFeel™ temp is a patented thing and incorporates many variables to come up with the number, which is supposed to indicate what it “feels like” to a human outside at the time all the variables were measured.  RealFeel includes temperature, dew point, wind speed, sun angle for a given date, solar intensity as defined from the solar index, percent sky cover, precipitation intensity, and altitude.  Other indices like the Heat Index include fewer vari...