• Moblog - Traveling Along, We're Adventurers

    Boothbay Harbor ME

    View from the deck near our room at the Harborage Inn. Free WiFI, but no breakfast included. Still, it’s a very comfortable room with really, really nice decor, beautiful bedding in the Laura Ashley manner, and some rather coffee and tea making gadgets. All it really needs is a microwave and a private lanai – the deck is more like a shared third-floor porch that gives access to the rooms. Eventually, they’ll have a big Jacuzzi right by the water, but it’s not quite ready for use yet. A lot of places aren’t even open this far ahead of Memorial…

  • Flickr - Mini-Posts - Moblog - Traveling Along, We're Adventurers

    Ladies room

    This was taken from within the sanctum; I’d never been in a ladies’ rooms stall with saloon-style swing doors before. The “katie-bar-the-door” closure was a bit awkward, but served well enough. Our lunch at this place, the Shoreline Restaurant and Lobster Pound in Ogunquit, turned out to be really good. It was an odd, funky place, with strange acoustics where you could hear the conversations in the bar clearly, even though it was around the corner and in a different wing o the building. We listened to some guy with a strong Boston accent (think “Good Will Hunting”) tell jokes…

  • Uncategorical Weirdness

    Dood ur paddles r longir dan Teh car

    There were lots more interesting things to see, but last night when we arrived at Boston Logan, this was what I chose to photograph. A crappy airport arrivals pickup lane – yeah. Because a crew team arrived carrying their long oars, walking like Odysseus with them over their shoulders. They had protective cardboard covers over the paddle end. The funny thing was when they met their ride, the mini-van was a lot shorter than the oars… but they coped with it by angling the oars out the front window slightly. Then a few minutes after the crew team left, a…

  • Episcopal - Traveling Along, We're Adventurers

    What Chowder Of Nourishment

    We’re off on vacation soon, and part of the time we’ll be in Maine. I don’t know if I’ll make it to church on Pentecost: I’m hoping we’ll be somewhere that I can slip off for a little church lady fix and David finds someplace to hang out for an hour or so. I started to laugh as I linked to this page, but the more I read this prayer over, the more I’m won over by its whimsy. Although I’ll pass on the pine needles and new-mown hay in my chowder, thanks, the other things sound quite all right.…

  • Blogs Wot I Read

    Racism, Homophobia in US Consulates in Brazil?

    A regular and respected commenter at Fr. Jake’s place noted that as a Brazilian national going to school in the US, he regularly endures extra attention and luggage inspection when traveling back into the States. And in an aside, he claims that US consular officials in Sao Paolo and Rio allow personal prejudices to influence the visa applications process. If true, this is absolutely disgusting and un-American… and I cannot wait for change to happen from the top down this fall. Unfortunately, diplomatic officials can be horribly entrenched. And so can their attitudes. HaloScan.com – Comments Seriously. US citizens have…

  • Hot Off The Presses

    Zimbabwe: Archbishop Tutu on the Arms Trade

    Archbishop Desmond Tutu comments on the “Ship of Shame” that was carrying Chinese arms for Zimbabwe. It seems to be headed back to China after offloading “construction materials” in Luanda, but it might be headed for Congo-Brazzaville. Others speculate that a ship-to-ship transfer is still possible. So far the biggest loser is China, whose reputation in Africa for doing business without bothering about human rights is now becoming a liability. Govern global arms trade | The Australian IN the present scandal of the attempt to ship tonnes of arms and ammunition to Zimbabwe, it is the Chinese who have spoken…

  • Clan: McTiVo - Music

    American Idyll

    Some people are really into American Idol, but I am not. I went through the lunch room the other day while a couple of Idol contestants were murdering U2’s classic “One” in some kind of live outdoor news-show venue. It sounded so awful… I wondered “what the hell is the fascination this country has with listening to people sing badly?” Both singers were completely off-key, both fighting to out-bellow each other, and working their hair and outfits even harder than their (blown-out) voices. It was not so much a duet as a duel. Thank God for iPod. I went back…

  • Religion

    Miraculous: Torah Saved and Restored By Many

    This is beautiful: From Auschwitz, a Torah as Strong as Its Spirit – New York Times The back story of how a Torah got from the fetid barracks of Auschwitz to the ark of the Central Synagogue at Lexington Avenue and 55th Street is one the pastor of the Lutheran church down the street sums up as simply “miraculous.” It is the story of a sexton in the synagogue in the Polish city of Oswiecim who buried most of the sacred scroll before the Germans stormed in and later renamed the city Auschwitz. It is the story of Jewish prisoners…