The Scottosphere

I flew on Vir­gin Amer­ica for the first time last week. (Con­clu­sion: not bad.) I hon­estly don’t under­stand this mes­sage, but I appre­ci­ate the thought that goes into the lit­tle details.

I think I spend more time in for­eign hotels than in US hotels. Because when­ever I walk into an Amer­i­can hotel room I find it com­pletely star­tling that when I open the door, all the lights are ablaze and the air con­di­tioner is run­ning at full tilt.

Really? Do we have to be this stu­pid? In 2013?

I found an old New York Times arti­cle which sug­gests a vari­ety of rea­sons for the lack of mas­ter switches (or water-saving fea­tures) in US hotel rooms, none of which are valid. As far as I can tell, noth­ing has changed since then.

Well, as far as urban Boston was con­cerned: so much for the hur­ri­cane. It sure was fun to head out to the beach and watch the kitesurfers though.

I’m sit­ting at a fac­tory in China, wait­ing for some boards to come off the pro­duc­tion line. Due to the defi­ciency of the elec­tric grid here, this region is hav­ing a power-saving day. Because they get only 24 hours of notice from the elec­tric author­i­ties, busi­ness has to pro­ceed nor­mally. So air con­di­tion­ing has been cut back to a min­i­mum to allow the entire cam­pus to be pow­ered from diesel gen­er­a­tors. This place is not a sweatshop—but it sure feels like it in these hallways!

And you thought this site was dead!

Sum­mer has been busy with Am’s wed­ding week in Maine and lots and lots of work. Finally, time for a week in France! When I return: some new pho­tos, and per­haps some more blogging.

I returned last week from a really great trip to Wales with old friends. More pho­tos are in the pipeline.
(This one was taken with the Mamiya RB67, a 90mm lens, and a mechan­i­cal self-timer.)

Need a bet­ter deal on used tires? Let me nego­ti­ate you a price. Blend­ing in with the locals, that’s my motto.

Hong Kong Island as seen from Tsim Sha Tsui, April 2007.

I’m trav­el­ing to Hong Kong and China this week, so I won’t be reach­able by telephone.

The sec­ond of three sched­uled New Hamp­shire trips this sum­mer took us to the White Moun­tains’ Sand­wich Range—specifically a 13.6 mile loop over Mt. White­face (4020 ft) and Mt. Pas­saconaway (4043 ft). I’d never been to this part of the Whites before, which is not sur­pris­ing because we chose this route specif­i­cally to avoid the usual week­end crowds.

The hike up White­face along the Blue­berry Ledge Trail was chal­leng­ing with long, steep ascents and plenty of rock scram­bling, con­sis­tent with the AMC Guide’s descrip­tion as “one of the more chal­leng­ing climbs” in the Whites. Hav­ing encoun­tered only a depart­ing hiker in the park­ing lot, we spent the night alone near the wooded sum­mit of Mt. White­face. (Our seren­ity would prove fleet­ing the next morn­ing when a pack of shirt­less teenage boys arrived on an ori­en­ta­tion trip from a New Hamp­shire board­ing school.) Con­nect­ing to Pas­saconaway on the Rollins Trail, we saw sev­eral men hik­ing with what turned out to be sec­tions of a large flag­pole; they were part of a “Flags on the 48” pro­gram com­mem­o­rat­ing vic­tims of ter­ror­ist attacks in 2001. Per­haps due to the day’s lim­ited visibility—the “dra­matic” view­points offered noth­ing but opaque clouds—the most remark­able scenery was that of Square Ledge and the fields of pink and blue gran­ite strewn about on the rougher Square Ledge Trail. Still, the ledge is prob­a­bly the most beau­ti­ful thing I’ve seen in the White Moun­tains, and com­pletely jus­ti­fied the long trek. We headed back on Kel­ley Trail.

There is one more high­light to this trip: the Sand­wich Cream­ery, the first stop on our impromptu New Hamp­shire ice cream crawl. It’s hard to get to but worth the trip—it really is true that happy cows make bet­ter ice cream.