With the release of the new iPhones, I suddenly realise that my iPhone 13 Mini is already two years old. I have no plans to buy a new model, but boy, time flies.
The Trash Collectors
Thursday, September 14, 2023
It’s Thursday evening. Time for the weekly ritual of putting the trash bins out for their collection on Friday morning. Tomorrow as I am waking up and making the first cup of coffee of the day, I will be greeted by the roar and grind of the truck carrying the trash collectors. It is a part of the weekly ritual marking the ticking of the weekly clock and the approaching week’s end.
Thursday, September 14, 2023 →
Up until a couple of weeks ago I had not heard of the organization World Central Kitchen. While volunteering at Lahaina Gateway following the wild fires here on Maui, food was available through the day both for those coming to collect supplies and those helping in their distribution. One of those offering free meals was World Central Kitchen. While I was directing traffic, trucks came in a few times during the day to deliver food to their delivery post, where WCK workers were busy handing out free meals.
This blog post explains some of what they were doing on Maui, along side local organizations such as Chef Hui. Chef Hui itself was collecting food made by different chefs and food organizations on the island, all on a volunteer basis and using donated ingredients. Some friends of mine had a burrito production line set up to pass on for Chef Hui’s distribution.
Food is our fuel, and at the same time is what community comes together around. I love how World Central Kitchen is ready to move to a place that has been hit by a natural or man made disaster, looking to collaborate with local chefs to cook the food of that place, the comfort food of that place.
Thank you to all who have kept Maui fed through these difficult times.
Thursday, September 14, 2023 →
Day 14 of the September Photoblogging Challenge: Statue, suggested by @christopherchelpka
I found this character in Bristol, UK.
Danziger's Travels
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
There’s a quote from the book Danziger’s Travel that has sat with me since I returned from my travels in the early 1990s. Danziger’s words spoke to how I felt on returning to my home country, Britain. I was feeling lost and his words told me that I was not alone. Nick Danziger had returned from an extraordinary journey, traveling through Afghanistan during the war with Russia, crossing the Kunjerab Pass between Pakistan and China before it was open to foreigners, making his way into Tibet when that country as well was closed to foreigners, and after finally arriving in Beijing he found a boat to take him back to the UK.
Wednesday, September 13, 2023 →
Day 13 of the September Photoblogging Challenge: Glowing, suggested by @anniegreens
A hotel lobby somewhere in Kyoto.
Day 12 of the September Photoblogging Challenge: Panic, suggested by @maique
While I’m not sure that I was panicking, at times I felt uncomfortable as we walked up the switchbacks of the precipitous Halemau’u Trail at the end of our crater hike last week.
Day 11 of the September Photoblogging Challenge: Retrospect, suggested by @chadgmoore
This just fitted the bill for me for retrospect. A area from my past and which is still in my heart.
Day 10 of the September Photoblogging Challenge: Cycle, suggested by @agilelisa
I miss the annual Providence Bridge Pedal in Portland. This photo (that arm on the left bothers me) from 2014 of cyclists stopping for the view from the Fremont Bridge, normally busy with freeway traffic.
Day 9 of the September Photoblogging Challenge: Language, suggested by @thedimpause
If it wasn’t for the pictures of the food in this Kyoto restaurant, we would not have eaten.
Day 8 of the September Photoblogging Challenge: Yonder, suggested by @jidabug
Inverness, CA.
Ruminations on Travel and Place
Friday, September 8, 2023
Wednesday of last week I went back over to Lahaina to spend the day volunteering. It was hot, very hot, but rewarding. As I drove home I was reflecting on where I had been for the day. I had traveled across a good part of Maui in traveling from my home to Lahaina. Let me try and give some perspective… My home is on the north east shore of Maui.
🩻 A hospital goes from a place that I rarely see, to one that becomes quite familiar. A chest X-ray just completed this lunchtime, with a follow up doctor’s visit tomorrow morning. All to see how my healing from pneumonia is progressing.
Day 7 of the September Photoblogging Challenge: Panorama, suggested by @dejus
The audience in Portland welcoming His Holiness the Dalai Lama, 2013.
Note to self: Do actually look at your ToDo list! 🤦🏼♂️
Wednesday, September 6, 2023 →
Day 6 of the September Photoblogging Challenge: Well, suggested by @val
I think that this must have been a well? Now inside a hotel on Lake Como.
I stepped outside this evening to a clear night sky, and there traveling overhead was a trail of Starlink satellites. That was the first time that I had seen them. It looked like a trail of Christmas lights floating across the sky. It was quite a sight. I’m now on the look out for the next sighting with the aid of this website.
I like Manuel Moreale’s analogy of seeing the online world as a mirror of the physical one.
Day 5 of the September Photoblogging Challenge: Forest, suggested by @ovr
The woodland leading down to the river Avon from Durdham Downs in Bristol, my stomping ground when I was growing up.
Sunset this evening from our lanai.
