Five Dangerous Things – the transcript

Over the past two years, I’ve gotten some requests to post a transcript of the talk I gave at TED in 2007. It sounded like a reasonable idea until I sat down and listened to myself talk and tried to write down what I actually said – what an exercise in humility. Luckily for me, the resulting procrastination paid off when TED contacted me to approve the transcript they had created from the video as part of a larger project to create multi-lingual versions of the talks. So, here, in all of it’s raw and, uh, like, broken sentences, is the actual transcript of the video:

Welcome to five dangerous things you should let your children do. I don’t have children; I borrow my friends’ children, so (Laughter), take all this advice with a grain of salt. I’m Gever Tulley, I’m a contract computer scientist by trade, but I’m the founder of something called the Tinkering School. It’s a summer program which aims to help kids to learn how to build the things that they think of. So we build a lot of things, and I do put power tools into the hands of second-graders. So if you’re thinking about sending your kid to Tinkering School, they do come back bruised, scraped and bloody. So, you know, we live in a world that’s subjected to ever more stringent child safety regulations. There doesn’t seem to be any limit on how crazy child safety regulations can get. We put suffocation warnings on
all the — on every piece of plastic film manufactured in the United States or for sale with an item in the United States. We put warnings on coffee cups to tell us that the contents may be hot. And we seem to think that any item sharper than a golf ball is too sharp for children under the age of ten.

So where does this trend stop? When we round every corner and eliminate every sharp object, every pokey bit in the world, then the first time that kids come in contact with anything sharp or not, made out of round plastic, they’ll hurt themselves with it. So as the boundaries of what we determine as the safety zone grow ever smaller, we cut off our children from valuable opportunities to learn how to interact with the world around them. And despite all of our best efforts and intentions, kids are always going to figure out how to do the most dangerous thing they can, in whatever environment they can. So despite the provocative title, this presentation is really about safety and about how some simple things that we can do to raise our kids to be creative, confident and in control of the environment around them. And what I now present to you is an excerpt from a book in progress. The book is called, “50 Dangerous Things.” This is five dangerous things.

Thing number one: play with fire. Learning to control one of the most elemental forces in nature is a pivotal moment in any child’s personal history. Whether we remember it or not, it’s a — it’s the first time we really get control of one of these mysterious things. These mysteries are only revealed to those who get the opportunity to play with it. So playing with fire, this is like one of the great things we
ever discovered, fire. From playing with it, they learn some basic principles about fire, about intake, about combustion, about exhaust, these are the three working elements of fire that you have to have to have a good controlled fire. And you can think of the open pit fire as a laboratory, you don’t know what they’re going to learn from playing with it. You know, let them fool around with it on their own terms and trust me, they’re going to learn things that you can’t get out of playing with Dora the Explorer toys.

Number two: own a pocket knife. Pocket knives are kind of drifting out of our cultural consciousness, which I think is a terrible thing (Laughter). Your first, your first pocket knife is like the first universal tool that you’re given, you know, it’s a spatula, it’s a pry bar, it’s a screwdriver and it’s a blade, yeah. And it’s a, it’s a powerful and empowering tool. And in a lot of cultures they give knives, like, as soon as they’re toddlers they have knives. These are Inuit children cutting whale blubber. I first saw this in a Canadian Film Board film when I was ten, and it left a lasting impression, to see babies playing
with knives. And it shows that kids can develop an extended sense of self, through a tool, at a very young age. You lay down a couple of very simple rules, always cut away from your body, keep the blade sharp, never force it, and these are things kids can understand and practice with. And yeah, they’re going to cut themselves, I have some terrible scars on my legs from where I stabbed myself. But you know, they’re young, they heal fast (Laughter).

Number three: throw a spear. It turns out that our brains are actually wired for throwing things and like muscles, if you don’t use parts of your brain, they tend to atrophy over time. But when, when you exercise them, any given muscles adds strength to the whole system and that applies to your brain too. So practicing throwing things has been shown to stimulate the frontal and parietal lobes, which have to do with visual acuity, 3D understanding, and structural problem-solving, so it gives a sense, it helps develop their visualization skills and their predictive ability. And throwing is a combination of analytical and physical skill, so it’s very good for that kind of whole body training. These kinds of target based practice, also helps — helps kids develop attention and concentration skills, so those are great.

Number four: deconstruct appliances. There is a world of interesting things inside your dishwasher. Next time you’re about to throw out an appliance don’t throw it out. Take it apart with your kid, or send him to my school and we’ll take it apart with them. Even if you don’t know what the parts are, puzzling out what they might be for is a really good practice for the kids to get, sort of, the sense that they can take things apart and no matter how complex they are, they can understand parts of them and that means that eventually, they can understand all of them. It’s a sense of knowability, that something is knowable. So these black boxes that we live with and take for granted are actually complex things made by other people and you can understand them.

Number five: two-parter: break the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (Laughter). There are laws beyond safety regulations that attempt to limit how we can interact with the things that we own — in this case, digital media. It’s a very simple exercise, buy a song on ITunes, write it to a CD, then rip the CD to an MP3 and play it on your very same computer. You’ve just broken a law, technically the RIAA can come and persecute you. It’s an important lesson for kids to understand, that some of these laws get broken by accident and that laws have to be interpreted and it’s something we often talk about with the kids when were fooling around with things and breaking them open and taking them apart and using them for other things, and also when we go out and drive a car.

Driving a car is a — is a really empowering act for a young child, so this is the ultimate — (Laughter) For those of you who aren’t comfortable actually breaking the law, you can drive a car with your child. This is — this is a great stage for a kid. This happens about the same time that they get latched onto things like dinosaurs, these big things in the outside world that they’re trying to get a grip on. A car is a similar object, and they can get in a car and drive it. And that’s a really, like, it gives them a handle on a world in a way that they wouldn’t, that they don’t often have access to. So — and it’s perfectly legal. Find a big empty lot, make sure there’s nothing in it and it’s on private property, and let them drive your car. It’s very safe actually. And it’s fun for the whole family (Laughter). So let’s see, I think that’s it, that’s number five and a half, okay.

From Doodle To Thing

I doodle when I am in meetings, or when I am not sure of what to do next, or when I am trying to solve a really hard problem, or when I am avoiding a hard problem. I’m a doodler. I doodle my way out of situations, I doodle to entertain small children, I doodle to explain complex system architectures to myself and my co-workers.

I have the great pleasure of having a Universal Laser Systems 60W laser cutter by my desk at my office. An object whose very existence asks the question “what are you going to make today?”

Naturally, it was only a matter of time…

I’m honestly not sure what to make of it. The object itself is kind of a mystery to me, and the whole process from locating the doodle in the notebook to assembling the pieces, took about thirty five minutes. A period of time so short that it barely registers as a project.

India Diaries #2

Days 1, 2, 3 – Delhi
A crew of men sweeps debris off of an elevated road in downtown Delhi. The dust and bits of metal blow directly onto a small apartment building where a chain of women in brightly colored saris vigorously sweep it hierarchically down until, after many transfers, it falls to the street, where a woman with a little baby slung on her back sifts through the dust and dirt for anything of value. This is Delhi.

On an alley running between military barracks and senior officer’s houses, families of monkeys scamper through the trees. Young women lean over the balcony of a brothel and wave at me. “New York! California! Hollywood!” they yell. My driver, Davijon, says that they are very clean because they are in the military district. A young monkey runs to the end of a branch and takes a daring leap across the width of the road, barely catching the end of a branch on the opposite side. The women clap, and Davijon looks at them with a longing that that first softens and then hardens his face – he looks away and gets in the car to wait for me. This is Delhi.

Humayun’s Tomb is surrounded by piles of burning trash. An inversion layer hangs over the region like a glass ceiling, trapping all the dust, exhaust, and rancid smells of the city. Wandering around the tomb, I am as amazed by the architecture and craftsmanship as I am by the powerful stench of the human feces which dot the fields around the tomb. From the scalloped walls, built in the early sixteenth century, I see half a dozen men squatting in the fields. Embarrassed, I look away and suddenly notice the eroded but still beautiful floral motif carved into the walls. This is Delhi.

We are stuck in traffic at noon. The driver ahead of us gets out and walks to the shade of a tree. The heat is almost unbearable. My driver, and now friend, Davijon laughs when I say that “beep, beep” is how cars say “Delhi, Delhi.” Now when someone honks behind us he says “Delhi, Delhi!” and chuckles. When traffic starts to move, Davijon has to go and wake up the driver who is now fast asleep under the tree. This is Delhi.

A little girl sees me take a picture of a dog sleeping on a bale of compressed paper and demands, politely, to see it. I hold the camera down where she can get a good look and she immediately tries to take the it away from me. I glance around to see if she is part of a team of robbers, then discover that she just wants to use the controls to look at all of the pictures. The constant wariness needed to keep from being ripped off taints almost all first encounters. This is Delhi.

My stomach is rebelling and the cramps are shockingly sharp and painful. When the merchants and passersby see me wince, they often spontaneously offer to get me some lemon-water. Davijon is most concerned and insists on taking me back to the hotel, only reluctantly agreeing to help me finish my list of tasks after many minutes of my determined attempts to convince him that it is not as painful as it looks. Later he stops in the shade of a huge tree and pretends that there is something wrong with the car so that I can rest quietly for a few minutes. This is Delhi too.

Day 4 – Taj Mahal
We meet at five AM to catch the express train to Agra, city of the Taj Mahal. My hopes for cleaner air are slowly dashed as the train rolls relentlessly through mysterious towns and terrain barely glimpsed through the haze. We hire a driver at the Agra station and have him take us to Yosh Cafe where, according to the Lonely Planet guidebook, we can rent a locker for our baggage. It seems the guidebook needs to be updated to include the following annotation: “lockers are actually wooden cupboards and require renters to bring locks, place reeks of urine, wooden cupboards are not actually connected to the walls.” The streets around the Yosh evoke the Katmandu of the first Indiana Jones movie – utter squalid chaos.

You can’t appreciate the Taj Mahal in one visit. I know because I tried. The best I can say is that it has beautiful proportions from every angle. It’s relationship to the smaller mosques on each side, and the towers across the Ganges, create amazing symmetries and sight-lines. Even the scum floating in the reflecting ponds, does not detract from the experience.

Our train to Jaipur is not until late in the day, so we take a break from local cuisine and try the bland American fare at a five-star hotel. From a roof-top portico we can sit and watch the light slowly change on the Taj.

Day 5 – Jaipur
Our hotel, the Sunder Palace, is listed in Lonely Planet, which means that the clientele leans to the backpackers and hostel-goers, but it has a lovely cafe in the roof-top garden and wonderful breakfast for very little money. I get my pants-pocket repaired by an ancient Muslim man with a treadle sewing machine. I offer 100 rupees ($2.50), but he refuses and accepts only 10 (25 cents). While my pants are on the machine, his assistant gives me a makeshift sari to wear and makes me tea. The assistant asks me where I am from, and when I say California, USA, the man at the machine stops for a moment, cocks his head at me and then says “Arnold Schartznegger!” I laugh and say yes, that’s our governor, he smiles and returns to the pocket work.

There is a temple to Hanuman in the eastern hills above the city. The path up is too steep for cars and rickshaws so very few tourists make the fifteen minute walk. On the way to the top, a gang of boys comes at me laughing and offering me their left hands to shake – evidently an insult in this land – I laugh and scamper up the hillside to avoid them. At the top I meet the monk. His name is Ram Niwas and we proceed to spend the next hour enjoying the view, ringing various bells, and talking about Rama, Sita, Ganesh, and Hanuman. Though the temple is dedicated to Hanuman, he is not actually in the central vaulted room. Ram Niwas asks me if I would like to see Hanuman. Of course, I say, and he leads me down some steps that lead through his house to a little locked (to keep out monkeys) room. Inside is a four foot tall statue of Hanuman that is covered head-to-toe in bright orange paint.
“Freshly painted?” I ask
“Oh, yes. A bath for Hanuman every Tuesday and Saturday. Rama on Sunday, and Ganesh on Wednesday.”
“And for you?”
“Every time it rains,” he says with a laugh.

India Diaries #1

Day 0
It is late at night. It is early in the morning. We are crossing Northern Canada and the slow undulations of a weak Aurora Borealis tease the horizon. I am watching a Bollywood movie to mentally prepare myself for what is to come. If rickshaw drivers and fruit merchants do not spontaneously burst into song when I get there, I will be sorely disappointed.

In business-class, they bring you a drink prior to takeoff. This seems so decadent and civilized at the same time that I take a tiny glass of champagne and wait for Clark Gable to arrive.

Champagne is still largely a mystery to me – like a book with beautiful pictures, but written in a language and alphabet that is almost like english and yet obviously not. I flip through and look at the pictures, with the distinct sense that I am missing something.

Lufthansa has a multi-lingual but primarily German staff. Miene deutsche ist kaput, nonetheless, I gleefully mangle it for the amusement of our steward.
Eine apfel kucken, bitte, I ask.
Mitt kaffe oder eine eiffel tower platzen fleischer druken eben?
I’m sorry, I thought I was asking for apple cake.
Yes, would you like coffee with that?
Neine, danke. But did you just say something about the eiffel tower?
Neine.

The movie goes like this: wealthy son of a dead industrialist gets dumped by fiance and gets on a train to Delhi only to discover that the seat he has taken belongs to a beautiful, and eccentrically chatty woman on her way home. During a stop, he wanders off and as the train sounds it’s whistle she chases after him. She knocks over an old woman selling tomatoes, and the train leaves during the ensuing argument, with her luggage, and purse on board. Much singing and dancing and confusion ensue. Then they get married.

Here’s the really interesting part – at one point, she runs away to Shimla and lives in the “Working Women’s Hostel”. Shimla? That’s the place I’m going on my train adventure in a few days time. Is it just coincidence, or something more? According to the movie there is a lot of singing and dancing in Shimla, and I’m looking forward to it.

Day 0.5
It is morning, it is evening. The progress map show us descending from 38000 feet as we slide down from the stratosphere into Munich. I am halfway to halfway around the world from where I started – directly North of Africa, Malta, Italy, Milan. These are the countries of spy novels.

We are passing through a layer of ice-crystals. Huge concentric rings of spectral colors surround the shadow of our plane. Granite-hard grains of pure water at temperatures far below freezing chew at the elastomeric membranes that protect the leading edges of the wings. I have slept three hours of the last twenty four.

Day 0.75
Munich Airport is gleaming and cold. The ambient air temperature outside is four degrees centigrade. In my accelerated time frame, just eleven hours into my journey, this is the next night. If all goes well, I will sleep from Munich to India and wake up in an Indian morning after seven hours of flight. I feel sleepy and the wired at the same time. I recognize the sleep-deprived cadences of my writing as I write. I feel the grains of time chewing at my leading edges.

My previous time at the TED conference has left me with my boundaries poorly defined. I keep expecting to have the easy instant connection that comes from powerful shared experiences, but my attempts at conversation are stalled at the mundane and purely observational. It was a lovely sunset. I did enjoy the chicken. I never expected it to be this cold here. Yes, it will be much warmer in Delhi.

There is a person smoking in the bathroom. Instead of paper toilet-seat covers, there is an anti-bacterial spray that, according to the illustrations, you apply to a square of tissue and then wipe the seat. The electric carts which whisk the elderly between terminals do not beep continuously while moving. The seats in this airport are not designed to prevent you from sleeping on them. I have left California.

Day 0.8
It is three AM in India and I am awake, my nose is running, and the man across the aisle is snoring. I decide to try and finish the introduction to my book, but get stuck on figuring out what it means to be competent. I want to include something about Philip Zimbardo’s idea of “heroic imagination” which he sees as the precursor to heroic action (the opposite of passive inaction) – it seems to me that competence is the basis of confidence, which must the be foundation of heroism, or at least a component – but it reads awkwardly and I end up just saving it as notes for later. Despite the setback, I make some progress and get a couple of good paragraphs written.

The Scientific Method

Earlier today I was bailing out the hot-tub for it’s regular cleaning. As I tossed the water over the railing one scoop at a time, I soon became entranced with the shapes that the water formed in mid-air just prior to exploding into a fine mist of drops.

Julie and I spent the better part of an hour trying different techniques, shutter speeds, and containers to try and catch the precise moment where the water spreads out and forms a thin membrane.

slow shutter, wrong focus #1

slow shutter, wrong focus #2

fast shutter, poor timing

fast shutter, good timing, complicated background

fast shutter, good timing, better background, unaesthetic container

fast shutter, good timing, better background, good container

new container, better volume

Las Vegas in the Year 2000 (part 2)

Another of the lost travelogues – a thrilling escape from the clutches of Las Vegas, only to fall under the spell of an exotic temptress.

“…A good rule of thumb is to imagine that everything you see is actually leftovers taken from a strangers refrigerator.”

Part 2.

And, in case you missed it, here’s part 1.

Las Vegas in the Year 2000 (part 1)

I recently recovered some old documents and discovered a trove of trip reports. This first one is ostensibly about a trip to NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) but is in reality the ramblings of an alien in search of oatmeal in a foreign land.

Please enjoy NAB – First Ascent.

Old Doodle #1

20040713 – staff meeting

Originally uploaded by gever tulley

I like to look at my old meeting doodles now and then. I especially like the task on this page “mail jay about the non-uniform charge controllers” – that must have been for the flying saucer.

The Florida Diaries

11:38am 18.dec.07 – First Night in the Keys
We arrived last night despite being held hostage on the tarmac for 45 minutes by American Airlines. Stopped along the way in Islamorada for dinner in the worlds windiest restaurant. The menu included deep-fried Dolphin, grilled Dolphin, Dolphin sandwich, and Dolphin sashimi. We were much relieved to learn that “Dolphin” is the local name for Mahi Mahi tuna.

The place is quite nice. There is a bit of a Sargasso growing around our jetty, and when the tide is out you can smell the old grass rotting. The view makes up for the knee-deep muck and there are plenty of local places to get in the water for snorkeling, so we’re not complaining about that. The pool is 85 degrees, so Mori and Julie should be quite happy here.

Jiro, the DSL service is unbelievably slow here. Maybe you can do a CO diagnostic and see if there’s a problem with the line.

We’re having english muffins for breakfast, fresh bananas, and coffee or orange juice as appropriate.

8:20pm 18.dec.07 – Getting our Bearings
Drive due East from California, turn right when you hit the Atlantic and continue following the coastline until you get to Big Pine Key, Florida.

We spent the afternoon in Key West, the end of the road. If the United States are Glass Beach, then the keys are the spot where all the over-tanned, leathery, flotsam collects. I’m not sure if they all worship Jimmy Buffet, but they all dress like him and sit at the bar just he does in his songs. There are drive-through liquor stores and walk-up bars where you can get margaritas in to-go cups, and two sandal stores on every block.

We watched the sunset with five hundred other people and it was just spectacular, exactly as promised.

7:43am 19.dec.07 – Ignoring Fences
Took a walk (had to hop a fence) this morning to an old quarry I spotted on the satellite map of our island. Something very spooky about the deep green water and machine-cut jagged edges of the pool. It’s almost like we expect only the scary creatures to fill in the holes that we make in the landscape. I found a couple of moulted horseshoe crab shells around the perimeter, and some colonies of almost transparent mussels, but no sign of any monsters from the deep.

8:40am 20.dec.07 – Jet Lag
In an effort to overcome the last of our jet-lag, we’re up at 8:30 this morning. It doesn’t take long in the tropics to start to feel like making breakfast is a big accomplishment. This probably accounts for the fact that there are few famous centers of innovation in tropical climes.

We’ve decided to acquire a kayak for the duration of our stay. We are here just long enough that renting one is more expensive than purchasing a used one – which brings up the interesting question of what to do with a kayak when we leave. It’s not like we can check it through at the airport.

Took the tour of Hemingway house yesterday. Saw the descendants of his polydactyl (many-toed) cats. Then we watched “Key Largo” with Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Edward G. Robinson, and Lionel Barrymore.

9:18pm 21.dec.o7 – Long Day
Spent the morning rediscovering my lost rope-splicing skills. Quality of my splices greatly improved with the use of a makeshift fid – the closed pliers of my Leatherman. After some muddling around, I managed to the get the kayak in the water and paddle two and half miles upwind to the White Ibis colony just around the other side of Big Pine Key. Turned back when the wind was more persistent than I, only to meet it head-on at the bridge again as I made my way upwind to home. Upwind both ways, thanks to a little squall that came through and dumped half a cup of water on me as I hauled the boat out of the water at our dock.

Made the front page of TED today and am starting to get comments and inquiries on the tinkeringschool website. It’s a case of “be careful what you wish for.” Now my editor wants to kick up the book schedule and get it out next year for sure. We’ll see…

7:34pm 22.dec.07 – Amateur Naturalist
Paddled out to Big Mangrove Key this morning (are you following along on your maps?) for a circumnavigation of the uninhabited atoll. Quickly discovered that if you paddle like you want to get somewhere, you miss everything along the way and soon settled into a very leisurely pace that took advantage of the tidal flow and morning breeze. Discovered mysterious and unusual creatures, many of which have never been seen before by human eyes. At almost one half of a mile from the nearest human outpost, the little key has only ever been mapped by satellite. As I skimmed over the skirt of Sargasso grasses and small sponge-forms, I was filled with both trepidation and glee. What primitive monsters lay in wait? What shoals of natural gemstones? What lost civilizations?

I saw a seabed littered with what looked like cheap brown crockery, only to discover, on closer inspection, that what looked like bowls and cups were actually sponges. Upside-down jelly fish bask in the shallows exposing internalized colonies of chlorophyll-laden organisms, pulsing gently in the sunshine. Uncountable schools of tiny fish scoot around like living shadows. Tenacious mangroves reach down from ridiculous heights to find support for their out-reaching branches.

Upon first arriving in the Keys, I was somewhat cynical about the decaying evidence of all the failed schemes put into play by dreamers who saw this as a place to make their mark. What they didn’t realize is that this place doesn’t require anything, from anyone. As the years go by, they inevitably give up their grand scheme, not for lack of trying – there is evidence here and there of some amazing efforts expended – but because the islands here are patient in their persistent lack of expectation. Not only is it ok not “do” anything here, it’s appropriate. This would be a tough place for me to live. Not because it’s hard to live here, but because it’s too easy – you slip effortlessly into a zen-like state of acceptance and then not only don’t realize you’re not doing anything anymore, you actually don’t need to do anything anymore. My first response is to create bite-sized projects for myself – tonight I built an aquascope so that I can see better into the water over the size of the kayak.

I am daily more impressed with Hemingway, who managed to write six books while he was here. He did it three hundred words a day on a manual typewriter – clackity clack.

9:01pm 23.dec.07 – Evening Confessional
I’m afraid of the dark. I’ll admit it, I’m not ashamed. It’s a symptom of having an overactive imagination. Every dark pool of shadow hides unknown possibilities – all of them… dark. It is normal for me to run from the studio to the house when I am done working down there. You see, the forest that I know so well during the day, becomes something sinister and mysterious at night.

So, it was with some trepidation that I volunteered to take the garbage out to the dumpster at the end of the driveway this evening. This undertaking would require me to walk down a long, curving driveway, losing sight of the house almost as soon as I departed. But, partly for an excuse to be alone, I bucked up and grabbed the bag before anyone else could offer to come along.

As I walked down the asphalt, a thought occurred to me – where do you put a leach field when you live at sea level? The woods that line the road are actually rooted in water. The only reason the house and road are not in water is that they pile up crushed coral to create the roadbed and foundation. So, I decided, the leach field must be under the road.

Which got me to the dumpster. Which is when I realized that the only thing I could imagine coming out of the woods here are those tiny Key Deer. Which is exactly when one walked out of the woods, crossed the road, and ducked into the mangroves on the other side.

Good night.

8:21pm 26.dec.o7 – Blimps and Sharks
Put the kayak in at the end of Blimp Road on the North side of Cudjoe Key and paddled upwind to the lesser-traveled parts of Knockemdown Key. These Keys have not been beset by the sea-grasses that are choking Big Pine Key. The locals tell us that it happens every couple of years, but that the winter storms can usually be counted on to clear the grass out. I would like to be here for a hurricane. I saw a refrigerator door in the upper branches of a mangrove on one of the uninhabited keys Jennifer and I paddled to yesterday. That’s a real storm than can tear the door off a refrigerator.

Blimp road is named after the Aerostatic Blimp base that the Navy has established on Cudjoe Key. According to the guard at the gate, it’s used for long-range radar surveillance. Julie and I assume that means they are keeping an eye on Cuba. The “aerostatic” part comes from the fact that the blimp is tethered.

I have driven down Cutthroat Drive, and past Cut-toe Drive. There is both Brigand Place and Brigand’s End. The No Name Pub is on No Name Key, and today I chatted with a guy who lives on Little Knockemdown Key in a cluster of four homes, two of which are vacation homes which the owners pretty much never use. He’s lived here in the Keys for all of his 58 years, and on Little Knockemdown for the past 23. He doesn’t own a car since Little Knockemdown can only be reached by boat. They collect rainwater in a thousand gallon cistern because there is no fresh water on his Key. His wife likes to read romance novels. There is, in fact, no source of fresh water in any of the Keys ever since hurricane Wilma pushed salt water into the Blue Hole on Big Pine Key. Hence, there are no wells on Wells Key. The newest condo development is called Parrotdice, and today as I drove home from kayaking, I noticed a “now open!” sign for the Pirate Wellness Center.
Funny place, this.

8:22pm 27.dec.07 – Fond Farewell
It’s late. We have to be out by 10am tomorrow, and we haven’t packed yet. We saw a giant sea turtle today, huge squadrons of angelfish, took a ride in a glass-bottom boat, and watched in fascinated horror as an alligator caught and ate a turtle – the sound of the crunching alone with stay with me forever.

Older Postings are on the Old Blog

I used to use Tumblr, which for the record is a great variation on the blog concept, but I was ultimately frustrated by the lack of comments, traffic reports, or stylistic control.

I had considered porting all of the postings over there to here, but didn’t find the time.

The old blog.