The beginning

(It doesn't get much better than this.)

During 2008 I had a website where I posted thoughts, news releases, conservation messages, relevant books, photos, etc. about ecology, natural history, and the environment. I spent a great deal of time on that website and I began to develop a following. Then, in January 2009, my collaborators in Thailand who kept the site running technologically inexplicably took the site down without warning. I have never heard another word from them, and most of the content of that site is gone forever. From time to time, I will reproduce some of the blogs with an environmental theme that I managed to save from that effort. But to be honest, I simply don't have the "fire in the belly" to try to convince anyone any longer about the plight of the natural world and what we should do about it. Occasionally, I might start preaching out of habit about how screwed we are, so I apologize in advance.

All I want to do now is describe the incredible biological wonder and beauty that surrounds us, most of which anyone can see with eyes wide open and a piece of land to gaze upon. At the same time, I need to make money in retirement, which I attempt to do by trading equities online almost daily. My life is pleasantly interspersed with two activities: 1) sitting at my computer pushing buttons that effect a buy or a sell of some publicly traded companies' stock, and 2) working on my property to produce some food, some firewood, some lumber, and tons of enjoyment by observing some of the thousands of biological stories playing out all around us. It really doesn't get much better than this!

At the end of almost every day, I sit somewhere on my property and have "Happy Hour", which consists of sipping a single-malt scotch and smoking a cigar hand-rolled in some Latin American country. And it is well past that time today, so I must pour that drink, light that stick, and see what the night sky hints about tomorrow's weather.