Categotry Archives: Mention Monday
Progress Report
I’m really looking forward to warmer weather and being able to use my bicycle. I cut way down on walking and switched to Dance Dance Revolution. I pant more and sweat more than when I’m walking, so I thought I was getting a really good work out, but when I set the game on exercise mode it said my two and a half hours only amounted to 200 calories. Then I made a terrible mistake. I ate pizza. I very […]
Get On the Bus
This ominous black bus is part of Indonesia’s anti-corruption campaign. It goes from place to place and educates the masses about their rights and responsibilities regarding corruption. IT also received complaints from the citizens. Apparently this has proven effective as problems with corruption have decreased noticeably since it began. I’m well aware that it is serious business, but I couldn’t help thinking Men in Black.
Zoos
At the end of the our visit to Prambanan Temple Complex, the train let us out near the entrance where we ran into something of a zoo. I can’t say I really considered it a zoo. There were only a few cages. The emu, and some deer seemed to be the only exhibits. Just how much of an exhibit does there need to be to consider something a zoo? I thought the one we visited in Belize was rinky dink. […]
Ramayana Ballet
I’ve been recounting my vacation in Indonesia in more or less chronological order. Today I’m going to jump around a little bit because I still have another 13 pictures to share from the Prambanan Temple complex, but I also have events the next day for which I have few if any good pictures. Probably the worst was the Ramayana Ballet.
I Write Like
It’s click bait. Only it’s the way click bait should be, with something of actual interest on the other side of the click. I happened to notice a button on someone’s blog this weekend. It’s a program that supposedly matches your writing style to that of famous writers. The first thing I put in was my Friday Fictioneer’s post, “Stairway to Heaven”. The result – I write like Steven King. Well, I can sort of see that. But I suspect […]
New Years 2016
Did you have a good New Years Eve this year? Mine was tamer than ever. I haven’t been to a New Years party in a loooooong time. Even in my 20’s I did fewer and fewer of them. But for many years I went out for dinner and a movie. This time we didn’t even do that. I’d caught a special on a package of meat at the grocery store, and didn’t want it to go to waste, so we […]
Mystery Volcano
See it? Yeah, I didn’t either. It’s there on the right. Or so they told me. The whole time we were in Yogjakarta we were within a couple dozen miles of a fairly large volcano. We were also shrouded in a haze of volcanic ash the whole time. Although I caught glimpses of the volcano, and even walked on it, most of the time I didn’t see it. In fact, when I was walking on it I wouldn’t have guessed […]
It’s Freezing!
This winter is hitting me harder than most. It’s not just the extreme swings in temperature. We have gone from highs in the low teens to rain in the last couple of weeks. This is on top of the normal extremes of living out west. It’s not just that my exercise program has me outside more than before. What’s more, because we only get about nine hours of sunlight a day I tend to find myself out walking in the […]
Tea From a Tree
As I mentioned Thursday, I have some problems with drinking tea. It isn’t just the caffeine that will do me in, but that’s a big one. When I discovered a tea at a restaurant that I could drink, I got a little too excited. They passed around a little bowl holding the ingredients in the tea. It included things like ginger and cloves, a bit of sugar, and some tree bark. The only thing I couldn’t easily get my hands […]
Engrish
I still remember times in my youth when I went to places where I could not speak the language. Generally the places in question had to do with Spanish. I recall a certain feeling of helplessness that I overcame over the years. When I go abroad now, I kind of look for that feeling of helplessness. I’d like to test myself – see if I really have improved in my ability to get what I need in a place where […]
Cannon Fodder
I mentioned before that Jakarta had a tendency to get overrun. That really stood out during our walking tour of Fatahillah Square. I don’t remember if these cannons were moved to the square after the Dutch left or before. Now it’s quite clear they are not a danger to anyone. More like a playground. Seems to me that’s the right direction for things like this.
Jack O Lantern
We had a huge pumpkin plant in our back yard this summer. A single plant from the dozen seed I started early in March made it to adulthood, but what a plant! The sucker sent out vines running all through the yard. Seriously, by the time it reached full size it made me think of Night of the Pod People type movies. It was supposed to produce award winning pumpkins of the “you could move into that and live it […]
NaNoWriMo 2015
Yep, I’m doing it again. I’m going to write a book in November. This time it’s going to be a Science Fiction idea that I’ve had floating around in my head for a number of years. It’s one of those great, archetype-filled journey stories. An outcast struggling to find his place in the world ends up the savior of his community. The only problem this time is that there aren’t any human beings in the story. The hero is a […]
Religion in Indonesia
This was the most religion-oriented trip I’ve been on in a very long time. It’s not that the travel company focused on it. It’s that the country is very intense about religion. It’s the kind of place where “What is your religion?” tends to come up soon after “Hello.” Normally that kind of environment makes me uncomfortable. In this case, I just kind of fell into the groove and let it go. Not everyone in our group felt that way. […]
Mosquitoes in Indonesia
About a month before my trip I dutifully called the local health department’s travel nurse to make an appointment for whatever immunizations I might need. Turns out a month is not enough notice.
