Category Archives: Daily Writing

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Daily Writing, Errant Literary

Do you have a favorite place you have visited? Where is it?

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My favorite place? It’s hard to choose just one. I’ve been to so many places.

Many a childhood Summer was spent with my father sailing. We would mostly go up through the San Juan Islands and into British Columbia. Although, once we went to Seattle and used the locks to enter the inner-bay.

We never made it as far as Alaska, not that we didn’t want to, we just lacked enough available time to make the journey.

Later in life, after finishing my tour at the Job Corps Center in Astoria, OR, I travelled again with my father, to visit my uncle in England. We stayed and visited with family for a time before shoving on to the next leg of our journey.

We flew down to the city of Toulouse in France and rode the trains, stopping off in small towns along the way. I got to visit castles which I was always fond of since a child.

WyrdLight.com, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

After France, we took a bus into Spain and then another train as we made our way into to Barcelona. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with the journey, culture shock, and the language barrier by this point.

My father and I decided to head back at this point. We travelled northward along the Mediterranean coastline and sampled those foods unique to the regions.

photos by Stephan Audiger of Hotels.com

Eventually we got back into France where we rented a car and returned to visiting yet more castles. I still have my commemorative coins from the sites we visited; there were little coin-operated vending machines supplying the collectibles.

I think my favorite place was Villandry. It has these elaborate decorative gardens, and Japanese koi swimming in the waterways around the grounds.

The last site we visited was Mont Saint-Michel. We took a bus from the port town and spent the day there. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many tourists in any one spot as at Mont Saint-Michel. The parking lot was packed with buses and the causeway up the hill was full of people.

photos by Robert Lio

I lost all of my photos from the trip quite sadly. I had uploaded them to an early cloud-storage site which traded hands a few times before going out of business. They were asking for outrageous sums of money to download my own photo catalog before the server shutdown.

We took the ferry from Saint Malo back to Portsmouth where we were met by my uncle. I stayed there for a few days and then flew back to the states. My father returned to his trip. He went down to Portugal and found himself a crew position on a catamaran making the return journey across the Atlantic and back to the US.

Many more trips would occur in the years to follow. But, I’ll save those for another day.

Daily Writing, Errant Literary

Share five things you’re good at.

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Five items that I excel at are: Computers, Gardening, Sailing, Photography, and Learning. But I don’t want to talk your ears off, so I will just detail a single thing I am good at today.

Green Thumb

I’ve always had a knack with plants.

When I was a child we had a large garden that wrapped around the remains of a boat. I can recall snow peas, sugar snaps, carrots, cucumbers, lettuce, and rocket.

We lived in a step-van parked behind a house. The property was surrounded by fields of wheat and a lone apple tree stood to one side near my fathers knife workshop.

Where I live now there is also a garden. It is not nearly as large as my childhood garden, but we still put effort into working the soil and tending the greenery.

I have acquired over the years a habit of saving my seeds whenever I eat fruit. I have successfully grown Avocado and Tangerine trees here in North Carolina, despite the harsh winters.

In the backwoods area of the property I have planted Golden Bamboo and Timber Bamboo, the later of which has come in handy for construction projects in and around our home.

Daily Writing, Errant Literary

Are you more of a night or morning person?

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I am a “stay up too late, wake up too late” person.

I tend to wake up around 11AM-12PM, sometimes later, if I haven’t got anything going on. Coffee seems to be my first consumed item come the new day.

There is always a mad dash to clear as many daily activities as I possibly can before settling down to study or work on a class project. I always feel like I am running behind schedule.

This isn’t a consistent pattern for me though.

There have been weeks where I managed to go to bed on time (11PM), I get a full nights rest and begin the new day fresh and ready to go. But this usually doesn’t last much longer than a week.

I keep telling myself that thing’s will be better once I finish the semester. However, I’ve told myself that for the past two years; and here I am playing the night owl once again.

Daily Writing, Errant Literary

What are your two favorite things to wear?

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As I am lounging about the house, I tend to wear pajamas and some bedroom loafers. I find the pairing to be quite comfortable.

I go for the pajamas with an elastic waistband, I can’t be bothered with untying and retying strings throughout the day. A couple of scrunchies to keep my hair out of the way and i am ready to take on the day (at home).

If I am going out to the store or for an appointment, I like to dress up a bit. I’ll usually wear a black or brown suit jacket with a polo shirt and some dress pants.

I’m not a big spender and get most of my clothes at Goodwill. My father always said, “Waste not, want not.” I think I’ve managed to follow his advice for the most part. I enjoy finding new ways to reuse old items, giving them a second life.

There are all sorts of DIY videos on YouTube, full of ideas on how to recycle and reuse anything and everything. It’s well worth a look if you have the time.

Daily Writing, Errant Literary

What technology would you be better off without, why?

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This is an easy question to answer for myself. It’s the Internet.

Through the internet, I can explore any location, interact with other cultures, learn about any topic, and while away every single day.

Day after day.

A computer, smartphone, or even a tablet, without internet access, is suddenly a whole lot less appealing.

What would I do without the internet?

Well, I might rummage through my closet to find some old CDs or DVDs, maybe find an old game to install, or a movie to watch.

Oh! Wait, I haven’t got a drive that can read them.

The only accessible ports are USB, so let’s head back to the closet and find my old thumb drive collection.

Gosh! That won’t work either.

Why? Because I moved everything to the Cloud, I need Internet access to get to my stuff.

I don’t deny the usefulness of the internet; in fact, I can’t get by without it. Everything from my investments and banking to school and healthcare is all digital nowadays.

If it were out of my life, I would most certainly be better off as far as my physical and mental health.

Those console emulators I downloaded back in the 90’s really got in the way of my middle school education.

Financially, too, since I wouldn’t have been able to drop everything on the stock market, I wouldn’t have indulged in Cryptocurrency or gotten hooked on mobile games.

So my answer is the Internet.

With the benefit of hindsight, that is the technology I would have been better off without.

Daily Writing, Errant Literary

Do you or your family make any special dishes for the holidays?

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I don’t usually go in for holidays. However, I am not one to say no to good food. My mother has a number of holidays, in addition to the standard set, that she will celebrate throughout the year.

  • Star Wars Day (May 4th)
  • Matrix Day (Mar 31st)
  • Bilbo and Frodo’s Birthday (Sept 22)
  • Harry Potter Day

Since this is a food related question I think it best to respond with pictures.

Daily Writing, Errant Literary

If you didn’t need sleep, what would you do with all the extra time?

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I often feel that there is simply not enough time in the day to do all that I want. I will quite frequently stay up late attempting to complete everything.

This of course results in waking up late each day and thereby having even less time to spend on those things I wish I had more time for.

The cycle repeats.

Now, if sleep was not necessary, what would I do with all that extra time?

First, I would make myself a schedule. I find lists are good for keeping some semblance of order:

  • I should like to step up my time spent creating video content for YouTube

Ideally, I would like to schedule videos out 2-3 weeks in advance. I think I would do this just in case something unexpected comes up and prevents me from recording.

More often than not there have been times where a scheduled video day has arrived and I have nothing on hand.

  • I would set aside a suitable period of time for self improvement activities

I don’t exercise as much as my doctor would like. Twice I have put my back out and been bed ridden for a week or longer.

I often think I should get some exercise, but somehow my priorities shift and it doesn’t happen.

  • Home improvement and DIY projects would also be at the top of my list

Earlier this year my mother was injured when a board in our back porch gave out. Really the whole deck needs to be rebuilt, but I cannot afford the cost.

I ordered the wood and screws to effect repairs, but I only got maybe halfway through the project. I feel bad about it every time I see the unfinished holes.

  • Going for a walk would be nice, getting out and into the sunshine

I really do spend far too much time either at the computer studying, in front of the TV watching shows, or with a phone in hand, participating in some inane activity.

Back out in nature, back to my roots, recalling some small piece of my youth. I should like to go on an adventure.

  • Lastly, I would spend time remaining quiet and still. Some reflective inward searching may be beneficial for me.

There was a period of my life where I meditated daily and took time to understand my self. I would read Mooji books and remain quite. I miss the sense of peace I had in those times.

Daily Writing, Errant Literary

Name your top three pet peeves.

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  1. Descriptions that spoil the show.
  2. Loud ads in between ASMR videos.
  3. Getting up to refill my drink.

I will quite often skip the description for a new television program if it is more than a single paragraph. Too often have I encountered a description that explained the entirety of a show before I watched it.

I enjoy listening to ASMR videos on YouTube. Unfortunately, of late, there has been a spike in adverts that play both during and after such video content.

Videos I have watched in the past and know not to have ads, and say as much in their descriptions, now have very loud ads that play.

Frequently making coffee, drinking coffee, and then going for refills seems to fill my day. If only the cup were considerate to my wants.

I’d like a cup that would stroll over to the coffee pot and refill itself, add some cream and sugar, and finally present itself, heated to a pleasant degree, ready for my consumption.

Daily Writing, Errant Literary

Who are your current most favorite people?

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Song Sohee – Gyeonggi minyo or traditional folk singer.

My favorite people are Hanguk.

I was introduced to Korean music in 2008 while playing Dungeons and Dragons Online.

I had just joined a pickup party, and the leader was apologizing over the microphone that his buddy was a “k-pop fangirl” and that music would be playing throughout the dungeon.

The music playing was from the group Girls Generation who were quite popular at the time.

In the subsequent years I have become enamored of Korean culture, customs, and history. My family has adopted the custom of performing the 제사 (Jesa) each year in memorial to our deceased relatives.

I and my family have enjoyed watching Korean television programing including Drama, Sitcoms, and Variety shows.

Currently, I am really enjoying watching I Am Solo. I’ve been a Defconn fan for some time. I am happy to see his career flourishing.

Daily Writing, Errant Literary

What are your favorite animals?

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Cats. It’s got to be cats.

When I was 12 years old I and my mother picked up a pair of kittens from a woman who was giving them away at the local Safeway grocery store.

A female and a male. I named the male Zachary after the Black Power Ranger, while my mother names the female Calisto after a character from the TV show Xena: Warrior Princess.

Calisto bore a litter of her own shortly before her death. A woman came to the door one day in tears and said that she had just hit our cat.

Calisto managed to make her way home to nurse her kittens one last time. The internal damage had been catastrophic and we had the veterinarian put her down.

Of the kittens, we kept but one, an all gray runt of the litter. We named him Zing. Both Zachary and his nephew Zing remained with us until the family left Washington around 2006.

Zing found a home with a family friend, while Zachary joined my mother as she flew to their new home in North Carolina.

Zachary lived to 21 years of age, quite old for a cat. In his old age his kidneys were just about shot, the limits of diet and medicine. As his pain and general discomfort became apparent my mother took him to the veterinarian one last time.

Sadly, I was away from home at the time and did not get to say goodbye to a most cherished member of our family.

I am comforted by the many photos I took in his more spry days.

He was often found napping on the back porch.

In my memory he is still there.