Muses I Have Had, Coffee I Have Drunk

The Trail Since 2006

It began with a spark of inspiration from a few kindred spirits scattered along the Appalachian ridges, mostly in North Carolina and Virginia. Back then, we were virtual friends who—for the most part—never shared a physical porch, but we built a digital one together. Some were writers, some were poets, and some were photographers, each of us finding our way through those early “virtual woods” on the internets.

What follows is a collection of my latest musings (and perhaps a bit of blathering), a trail of thoughts that winds all the way back to those first steps in 2006.

Or just meander through my past muses… Just hope the coffee isn’t stale!


There Is A Look In The Air

Sitting out on the front porch these past two weeks I’ve begun to notice the look of fall every morning. Sadly, so far at least, it’s just a look…Not a feel. And truthfully, the look…

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Summer Continues

Sometimes it seems like summer will never end here along the Texas coast. Yesterday afternoon the temperature was pushing 97° according to the weather station on the mantle. I checked with the WunderGround and the heat index…

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Dog Days Of Summer

I have found myself swamped with a lack of umph these past few weeks. The heat and humidity of a SE Texas August has me spending all of my time just trying to stay cool… I have…

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Oh Baby, It Is Hot Out

Every time one of us would walk outside today we would come back in and moan about how hot it is outside…Little did we realize. We did a run to wally-mart earlier today and the…

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This Summer Is Stranger Than Most

Down here on the Texas Gulf Coast summer this year has been stranger than most we’ve seen lately. Most years, at lest here lately, by early August the predominate color around these parts has gone…

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Leon Hale Talks About Owning Rural Property

I caught Leon Hales latest in my feed reader last week and thought he had a lot of good points. After spending a quarter of a century posting columns from the porch of his place…

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Another Wet Rainy Week

After finally seeing a lessening of the attacks by the marauding blood suckers the weather has decided to return to the unstable side of the summer pattern. Thunderstorms crossing the landscape like huge sailing ships…

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They Took My Kodachrome Away

Kodachrome – Paul Simon – Momma Don’t Take My Kodachrome Away – Click here for more amazing videos PARSONS — Freelance photojournalist Steve McCurry, whose work has graced the pages of National Geographic, laid 36…

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A Walk Across America

Do yourself a favor and watch it in HD. Then go ahead and watch the video on the making of the “Walk”. Here is the map. Thanks to Cali Lewis for the link to the…

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It Only Takes A Fresh Perspective

Lila Kerr was drawing her own blood and handing it over to a room full of health directors in Yatzaputzan, a village in the Ecuadorian Andes, as they prepared to test out a portable centrifuge…

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Want a Lot of Traffic

…Just have someone with your name hit the Today Show. I was checking my email a few minutes ago and I saw I had a couple of comments over at Gary-Boyd.com that had eluded the…

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Lost In Someone Else’s Words

If it seems like I’ve vanished from the face of the world here lately, it’s mostly because I have. At least the face of this world. I’ve been spending my time for the last two…

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A Tale Of A Simple Creek

A couple of weeks ago, I walked along a spring creek in the upper Madison Valley, just south of the town of Ennis, Mont. As my guide, Jeff Laszlo, explained, the creek is one of…

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Can We Say Biting, Flying, Demons From !*##

After a couple of days of semi-sunny, completely muggy, stay inside weekend days followed by a clear hot Monday we went straight to more rainy muggy days. Tropical moisture has flowed up over the coast to our…

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Rainy Days and Rainy Nights

Hurricane Alex may have missed us but it’s been raining all week. I have discovered that if I plug my computer feed into the plasma in the kitchen where I sit at the table all…

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The Eagles St. Louis

St. Louis Birdwatching

The entire (well mostly anyway) reason for our jaunt up the road to the middle of the country wasn’t to see the famous Arch. It wasn’t to celebrate history. It wasn’t even to find a…
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St. Louis Wandering

A cool front was moving through the area as I watched that morning. The day promised to be pleasantly warm and not as uncomfortably hot as it had been all week.
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Traveling Mid America

We headed north out of Houston on Tuesday before the sun came up and hit Oklahoma soon after noon. I had routed our trip to take advantage of the Arkansas Mountains…We had reservations at Queen…
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Seasonal Chores

The Yard The rains last week had me cruising around on Monday for most of the day. I was flying formation with squadrons of dragonflies as I made my rounds on the Deere…The summer numbers…

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An Interesting Week

Thunderstorms and Heat The week started off with thunderstorms rolling through the area…Lights were blinking, internet connectivity was problematic at best but we kept on keeping on. Wednesday’s storms missed us and by Thursday we…

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When The Weather Is Great

You Are Not Spending The Summer In SE Texas The temperatures for the past week have started each day above the 75° mark on the thermometer. From there they just keep climbing. Yesterday we saw…

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Why Not?

At the end of a long weekend of unending fun…I built a gazebo, bar-b-qued for the family, updated  the software that runs my genealogy site (which managed to break it until I gave up and…

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A Rerun Of Spring

The Weather I climbed out of bed this morning to find the temperature had fallen below 70° for the first time in what seems like weeks… Who would have thought that a spring-like morning at the…

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Wine Glasses – A Story

As I usually do, I started this Saturday morning reading my email and listening to podcasts…After the daily Writer’s Almanac, Saturday brings The Splendid Table. Listening today led me on a web browsing meander I…

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Summer Is Here

Let’s Talk Weather You know it’s summer here on the Texas Coast when you step outside before sunup and the humidity settles around your shoulders like a heavy damp cloak. At daybreak the mercury has been hovering…

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It Seems Like I’m Neglecting My Muse

General Muse Over the past week it has seemed as if I am neglecting the daily muse here at Coffee Muses…What with experimenting with WordPress 3.0 on a couple of test blogs (and posting about…

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Do you have Hulu.com subscriptions?

I don’t know about you, but I have a few. Some of them I share with my wife. The problem we always have had was trying to comfortably share the laptop screen with each other…

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The Sounds Of Morning

One of the most interesting sounds to float in the door on this cool mornings is the call of the Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus). Once you hear the loud raucous laugh of a Pileated you…

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It Is The Second Anniversary Of My OTC Freedom

For over 35 years one of the defining events of each year was the opening of the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston. During much of that time, OTC was the largest tradeshow we did each…

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Late Spring In SE Texas

The afternoon temperatures are closing in on the 90’s most days here for the last week. A cool afternoon is one that just tops 80. At least the nights are cool…And that means the mornings…

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Continuing The Visit

Just to give you an idea of the area of the state we were covering here is an image of the page in The Roads of Texas – 5th Edition map book I use to…

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Visiting The Past

This past week my wife expressed a desire to visit the cemeteries where ancestors are resting up around Milam County in central Texas. Since the weekend was one of the few our daughter was off…

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Today Should Have Been My Day

Planning Your Life My morning email brought me this… Gary, here is your schedule for: Thu Apr 22, 2010 All day Thu Apr 22 Retirement Day Gary Boyd I don’t remember when I set up this…

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If I Only Had The Day To Play

I’d spend it at the battlefield this weekend… Bugle calls and thundering cannons will fill the air Saturday at the old San Jacinto battlefield — the site where Sam Houston’s army won Texas’ freedom from…

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Today Should Have Been A Great Day Of Goodbyes

For most of the past decade I had picked today as my last day of employment with Freeman. Earth Day 2010…The fortieth anniversary of the defining idea of my generation and 38 years into a…

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Jason Kottke Is A Cruel, Cruel Man…

Love it. Robin Sloan has previously discussed this type of “production as performance” video on Snarkmarket but Pomplamoose has started using the term “VideoSong”: ~ via Pomplamoose covers Lady Gaga’s Telephone. So began one of…

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Musing In On A Sunday Morning – The Videos

This morning I spent some time with some friends, old and new, via YouTube… First it was my buddy, Fred First’s Slideshow presentation of the images in his second book as I sipped my first…

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In Search Of Excellence…

Many years ago (way back in the decadent ’80’s) as I began to move into middle management I discovered Tom Peter’s In Search Of Excellence. I took the book to heart. I strove to make…

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Thinking About Where I Am Headed Online

The past couple of weeks have found me spending more time outside with my 18 month old grandson and less time living  online. Of course the weather has made it easier to be outside enjoying…

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One Day In SE Texas In Spring

[ti_billboard name=”Spring Day”] We took a drive around the county yesterday…Me and my Nikon. The slideshow above has some of the results…I hope you enjoy.

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Testing Tierra Billboard Plugin

[ti_billboard name=”test”] Boy talk about killing time in a hurry…I was perusing Google Reader this morning and ran across a video from WordCamp New York (WordCamp NYC Session Video Posted « Tierra Innovation: WordPress CMS…

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