Our Third Annual Spell Check spelling bee for grown-ups last weekend was a big success and raised a nice stack of cash for the Brattleboro Arts Initiative(brattleboroarts.org). By popular demand, here are the words used to confound our contestants along with the silly sentences I constructed with the idea of keeping the audience awake. I’d like to think I was successful on both counts. Click [here] to see the list.

---

Spell Check 2010...The second annual Spell Check, a spelling bee for grown-ups was held this weekend. To keep things interesting I like to weave a storyline or two or three through the random list of words as I construct sentences with which to demonstrate the word. We didn’t get all the way through the list, so here it is in its entirety for those who were at the show and want to see where it all goes, or for those of you who like a good solid word or two. view complete list

---

Canus Minor...I suffer from Compulsive Cosmology. The condition often manifests itself on clear summer nights when I’m out looking for the dog. For no good reason something in the sky catches my attention and the next thing I know I am standing with my head bent backward, slack-jawed, contemplating the scope and ultimate fate of the universe. Read More...and or click play to listen.

---

Forgive Me...It’s the end of another year and time for a little ritual I call, “Forgiveness” There’s no gain in carrying over resentments from one year into the next. I’m sure there’s more where these came from. So, why don’t we let each other off the hook for all our little transgressions right here and now?
Read More...and or click play to listen.

---

Free Agent Fan...I guess you could say I am a born again baseball fan. Having spent 25 of the last 30 years in Alaska it was hard to get invested in a baseball season that was reduced to a dozen or so televised games in October and the occasional triple-A radio broadcast from Anchorage.
Read More...

---

History Tour...In Alaska you can drive for two solid days and still be there. I’ve visited three states on an afternoon errand out here. My routines regularly take me through Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York and I can’t list the number of times the event being discussed on my lecture took place on the geography out my windshield.
Read More...and or click play to listen.

---

Home Planet...Earlier this year the words To understand and protect our home planet were quietly omitted from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration mission statement. In their place is some vague mandate to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research. Read More...

---

ID vs. Evolution...Let’s start with Intelligent Design Creationism. This theory proposes that the world is too complex to have happened by evolutionary accident, and that some intellect must be behind it. If this implies that anything more complicated than we can get our heads around must come from Divine Intervention, then the people behind the new prescription drug plan are on the fast track to sainthood. Read More...and or click play to listen.

---

Man With A Mac...In a fit of midlife experimentation I crossed the digital river Styx and purchased an iBook. Yes, that’s right. I bought a Mac. I’ve now joined the roughly ten percent of Americans who believe there is life after Windows. Read More...and or click play to listen.

---

Mud Season...Originally this term was applied to the river ice -- which literally breaks up and flushes downstream with the undeniable message that it’s time to put away your dogsled and dust off the canoe. Read More...

---

Quote Me...You see, awhile ago I noticed this quotation popping up all over the place attributed to me. I’ve seen it on several internet based quotation websites. I’ve seen it as the chapter opening in self-help books. Read More...and or click play to listen.

---

Red State Blues...I live in Vermont, a state so blue that even the Indigo Girls look faded when they come through here . I’m comfortable with it, but I found that I was equally comfortable for the twenty-five years I lived in Alaska, which is as red as a fisherman’s neck. So, what does this say about me? Do I have the political and cultural equivalent of gender confusion? The only way to know for sure is to look at some facts. Read More...and or click play to listen.

---

Turning Fifty...I talk to my older boy about his future. How to prepare for it. Opportunities he might explore. I might as well be telling him how to soften animal hides with his teeth for all the good it does him. I don’t know what he’s up against in this world. I have no idea where the prizes are in this economy. I don’t even know which is Game Boy and which is X-box.
Read More...and or click play to listen.

---

Twitter, Twitter, Tweet...Twitter is like an old fashioned chat room except everyone gets to decide who’s in the room. You take the comments of only those you want to read ... it’s a chat room where you can say pretty much whatever you want as many times as you want about anything you want 140 characters at a time. As wide open as it is, nobody on it can seem to come up with much to talk about except what’s going on with them. I do it myself. Read More...

---

A Writer Who Doesn't...Most of a writer’s day entails sitting in a chair doing nothing. Well, not exactly nothing, but at least nothing worth writing about. Some writers are superstitious and obsessive compulsives. They might have a certain kind of paper pad they have to use with a particular brand of pencil. If they don’t have those things, they can’t work. Read More...and or click play to listen.

---

A few words about Cows... What I came up with, obviously, was meant for a local audience . We live in a rural farming area with quite an eclectic mix of local and imports. Each year we stage a wonderful parade called Strolling of the Heifers... Read More...