Ruminations

A periodically updated collection of essays, thoughts, fiction and other writings...

 

January 17, 2002 -- Two pieces of fiction that seem apropos these days.

"Paper" was written after the stumble, but before the fall of the new economy. Its theme fits nicely with today's cautionary stock market news, headlined by Enron's troubles.

"a prayer from the night before HST signed the atomic papers to prompt V-J Day..." was written in the mid-1990s. Before Pakistan was an official nuclear power. Its prescience is all too frightening in the world of 2002. (This story can also be found at uberhaus.com.)

October 24, 2002 -- Antiblog : I know, I know. Ruminations is something of a weblog as it is -- random thoughts, essays and all that. The antiblog is a place where short observations can be found with one click ( ... maybe more than one as the page grows). The name? For no discernible reason (to me), I can't stand the word "blog." Hence, antiblog. (updated 1/8/08, and retired)

January 7, 2008 -- A capitulation to the world of blogging. Find my blog at WordPress.

February 22, 2008 -- Here's a blog post on SEO website content. SEO content is among my commercial writing specialites, so I built this post to optimize the keywords "seo," "website" and "content."

March 6, 2008 -- "Haddo's Delight" is a short story I wrote in late 2003 combining elements of Somerset Maugham’s “The Magician” with Oliver Haddo as a central character, and an excellent pipe tobacco called Haddo’s Delight blended by G.L. Pease. The story was written specifically for pipe smokers, and for lovers of the blend who became so enchanted they referred to Pease as “the dark lord.”

Origianlly this was published as a hidden part of this site and I posted the url to only two places. Originally at the newsgroup alt.smokers.pipes, and later at The Gray Fox’s online forum. I posted this to my blog today, so I decided to add the story to Ruminations, as well. I hope you enjoy this tale of fantasy and hypnotic pipe tobacco.

January 7, 2009 -- "The Oldest Member" is another homage -- this time to P.G.Wodehouse's excellent story collection, "The Golf Omnibus." Each story in that collection was narrated by The Oldest Member. This is a modern spin in the same vein.