If Wishes Were Horses (⭑⭑)
Yawn. "If Wishes Were Horses" is (ironically enough) an unimaginative, pointless, and boring episode on so many levels. It scores above the very worst episodes of this season by virtue…
The Forsaken (⭑⭑⭑)
Here is one of the most confounding things about the first season of Deep Space Nine: its Lwaxana Troi episode is better (and by a considerable margin) than its Q…
Dramatis Personae (⭑⭑⭑)
"Dramatis Personae" is going to be a tricky episode for me to review, because I have kind of a weird history with it. I don't know whether or not I…
Duet (⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑)
"Duet" is frequently cited as the best episode of DS9's first season. I'm not sure that I'm willing to go quite that far, but beyond any doubt, it is one…
TNG “Story Types”
There are many different ways that episodes/stories can be categorized: by quality, by "genre" (comedic vs. action-oriented vs. dramatic), by which character or characters (if any) is featured, etc. What…
TNG Statistical Summation
Having completed the project of rating and reviewing all 176 episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, it's time for some observations about how the show stacks up, as a…
Meandering Thoughts on “Kitsch” (with a Major Digression Concerning a Beloved TV Show)
One day, a month or two ago, a few friends and I had a conversation that began when somebody referenced the concept of the "ugly Christmas sweater," and I—albeit with…
Music, and Memories, and—Moving On? (Journalings About Recent Experiences/Feelings)
In recent weeks, I’ve experienced numerous little moments of intense emotion, where the emotions in question are simultaneously joyful and profoundly, despairingly sad. And I’ve wanted to talk about these…
Wrapping Up: The Trip Home From Yellowstone
I’m sort of ready to be done writing about this trip, and I’m not sure how much I really have to say about the homeward-bound road trip in any case.…
Day 5 at Yellowstone: Finally Conquering the Mary Mt. Trail!
And so, the day of the big 20-mile hike finally arrived! Once again recapping some back story here: Way back in 2009, during my first trip to Yellowstone as an…
Day 4 at Yellowstone: On My Own, Solving Problems…and Hiking!
So, at the end of my previous post, I left myself waking up in my tent around 2:00 am when my second C-PAP battery died on me. I spent the…
Yellowstone Interlude: Voyage to the Tetons
When I tell people about my various trips to Yellowstone, I am often asked whether or not I also drove down into Grand Teton National Park at all while I…
Day 2 at Yellowstone: Geysers, Hot Springs, Fumaroles, and Swimming!
So, the plan for the morning of “geyser day” was for me to drive down to Fishing Bridge (the RV park) to meet up with everyone else, and for us…
Day 1 at Yellowstone: Waterfalls, Mud Volcanos, Etc.
Okay, forget what I said about “writing about this trip differently.” I thought I was going to just do a few posts, covering two or three days per post, rather…
The Beginning of Another Yellowstone Trip
This was a somewhat different trip from other trips that I’ve taken (and written about) in recent years—and accordingly, I may end up writing about it in a somewhat different…
Days 9 & 10 of Grand Canyon Trip: The Voyage Home
I planned to road-trip home from the Grand Canyon in just two days, which meant driving about 12 hours each day—a lot of driving! Plus, thanks to the no-daylight-savings-time-in-Arizona issue…
Day 8 of Grand Canyon Trip: Final Day at the Canyon
As you might expect, I woke up with some rather sore leg muscles on this morning. At first, it felt like I could barely walk! But it was my last…
Day 7 of Grand Canyon Trip: Indian Garden
This, then, became the "big day" of my trip—the day on which, per the plan that I’d hatched the previous day, I hiked the farthest into (and then, later, back…
Day 6 of Grand Canyon Trip: Going In a Little Further…
I had hopes of getting a really early start this morning; if I did, maybe I could make it all the way down to the 3-mile rest house on Bright…
Day 5 of Grand Canyon Trip
Partly because I got off to a much later start on this day than most others during my trip (thanks to that 10-hour sleep), I decided that it was a…
Day 4 of Grand Canyon Trip: First Day at the GC, First Hike into the Canyon
I ended up deciding to start things out by joining a ranger-led hike going just a little ways down into the canyon on this first morning. The information said to…
Some General Reflections On My Grand Canyon Trip
There will be more day-by-day type posts to come, with pictures and details about my doings out here. This post, though, is not that sort of post. The Grand Canyon…
Days 2 and 3 of Grand Canyon Trip: Getting There
This post may not be among the most fascinating or deep of my writings, but if you’re interested in some details about the rest of my journey out to Grand…
Looking Backward On the First Day of My Grand Canyon Trip
I didn’t really talk much about this to a lot of people, so if you’re reading this, you may well not know that for the first day of my Grand…
Of Beginnings, and a Fateful October Evening Long Ago
This piece was written in February of 2018, about two and a half years before I started this blog (and about two years into my post-marriage life, although just one…
Wrapping Up a 9-Year Chapter of My Life
Today was my last day working at the University of MN. It’s pretty mind-blowing, and it’s barely begun to really sink in. I brought my plants, my penguins, my pictures,…
The Voyage Home (Final Two Days of Yellowstone Trip)
The highlights of the last two days of my trip can be covered via a fairly brief summary, I think. I got up nice and early on Saturday morning, took…
Final Day in Yellowstone (Day 7 of Trip)
I had spent quite a bit of time pouring over my book of hiking trails trying to decide how to spend my last day in the park. I wanted to…
Whitewater Rafting Day! (Day 6 of Trip)
Thursday was the day on which my whitewater rafting adventure on the Yellowstone River (which I’d booked way back in March or April, when I was initially planning this trip)…
Third Day in Yellowstone (Day 5 of Trip)
My plans for this day consisted, for the most part, of finishing up and/or trying again at the things that I’d set out to do the previous day: I wanted…