I just want to take a moment to brag on my daughter. Please forgive the indulgence.
Christmas around our house is a celebration of family and not a religious holiday at all. Yes, we have a tree but that’s more for aesthetic reasons and are probably closer to the original pagan roots than anything else. We also have an “admin” calendar,* which is dutifully opened every morning (we tend to get Monki playmobil).
Continue reading “Santa 2025”
The school year here starts on September 1, which is also a holiday. This means that the kids all go to the school, meet or re-meet their teacher and classmates, have a little bit of a motivational ceremony, and then they’re free to go, with actual instruction starting on the 2nd*.
Continue reading “Getting Out – August 31”July 2 – Day 5
One of the other places we wanted to visit was Balos Beach. This is the location of the pale green, almost crystal waters you’ve seen in all the adverts. It was also someplace Rasa’s friend had been to last year when she visited Crete. The only problem seemed to be it was down another long slope from a high mountain parking area. Since we’d just done this, we wondered if maybe there was another way.
Continue reading “Seasick Mermaids – Crete 2025 – Part 3”June 30 – Day Three
We were to meet the car rental representative in the hotel lobby at 9:00 a.m., so we arrived bright and early at 8:55. He showed up promptly, and there was no problem signing all the paperwork. Honestly, one of the easiest car rentals I’ve ever done. The only issue came when we had to pay for it, and he couldn’t take cards. Of course, they never told us this. If they had, we could have gotten the money while we were out the day before (or even brought it with us). Instead, I took the car into town, following our rep to an ATM. I got the cash, paid for the car and headed back to the resort. The fun here was that I don’t usually drive. Rasa is the driver in our family. It had probably been a couple of years since I’d been behind a wheel, so driving a manual transmission up the narrow, windy 2km back to our place was a little nerve-wracking (not as nerve-wracking as driving in the UK a few years ago, but still…). I made it back safely and met the girls in the restaurant for breakfast.
Continue reading “Caves and Hearts – Crete 2025 – Part 2”June 28 – Day 1
There were a number of options for our annual summer break this year. So many, in fact, that it took us a while to finally settle on going back to Crete for a second year in a row. Remember, we also went last year, with my folks, right after Monki’s birthday. This year, we’d booked another all-inclusive for the week before her birthday, at a different resort in a different part of the island (Crete is the 88th largest island in the world). We also decided to rent a car this time, to get out and explore a bit more.
Continue reading “Back Again – Crete 2025 – Part 1”
For about 20 years now, I’ve been writing regularly for magazines dealing with the topic of magic. Most of those pieces were for specialty magazines on the topic. I’ve edited magic manuscripts and consulted on live performances. I love the art form (I’ve even written a piece explaining why it is an art form).
I’ve covered some of the biggest names in the world as well as written the first articles on a number of up and comers. I think, with the exception of failing to get my friend Ian Rowland on the cover of the now defunct Magic Magazine, I’ve done okay.
Continue reading “And then this happened…”
Going into it, I knew this year’s ComicCon was going to be different. Paulius, the guy who had brought me into the fold, wasn’t around anymore. To be fair, he now had two small kids and was working on a PhD, so the months of work which goes into creating a momentous weekend can be a bit overwhelming. Without him, though, I had no point person, so I wasn’t sure what, if anything, I’d be doing at con this year. This manifested by me putting in TBAs in all my syllabi in case I needed to be gone during the final week of the semester.
Continue reading “Comic Con Baltics 2025”
This story starts long ago. Back in the late 70s, when I was in grade school, we had this thing called the Scholastic Book Club. I have no idea if it’s still going on and if it is, what resemblance it has to what I had experienced, but for me, in 4thand 5th grade, it was glorious.
Continue reading “The Shark in Charlie’s Window”Tuesday January 14
Today was the day I’d been waiting for! Today was Pompeii. Weirdly, today was also a late day. We wouldn’t be docking until around 13:00 (1pm) so when I went down for breakfast it turned out, they were actually serving brunch. Wild. Although it wasn’t really since the more traditionally afternoon tidbits weren’t actually going to be served until after 11:00. Anyway, before eating, I made a stop at the excursions desk. See, the way I figured it, after Genoa, I decided I’d rather have a guided tour than strike off on my own. In a city where I was staying and not under a time deadline, it would be fine, but knowing I had to get back to the boat by a certain time, just filled me with a particular panic. Thus it seemed best to get it sorted. I booked myself on a city tour for Palermo, which included seeing the opera house. But more on that in the next day’s entry, when it actually took place.
Continue reading “Cruising the Med – January 2025 – Part Two”Pre-Trip
My January trips are something I look forward to every year. The past few years I’ve headed off to London to see theatre and hang out with friends, which is amazing. Then last year, at the very last moment, I had to cancel my trip because the girls had Covid and while I felt fine and was testing negative, I couldn’t in good conscience leave them.* So no trip for me in 2024.
Then, with January of 2025 rapidly approaching, I knew I should start planning my trip. At first I thought about returning to London, but some things there had changed and while there were still shows and friends to see, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go. So I kept hemming and hawing and dragging my feet about the whole thing.
Continue reading “Cruising the Med – January 2025 – Part One”
Well… that was a year, huh?
It certainly wasn’t my best year in a lot of ways, but at the same time, it wasn’t the worst. A year ago, we were in the middle of construction hell. I wrote about it back in February, talking about how we were in the process of renovating the whole apartment. Our Christmas holiday last year was cooking on hot plates and doing dishes in the bathroom sink.
Thankfully, a lot has changed since then.
Continue reading “2024 in retrospect”
Back at the end of August, I had this weird idea. I’d been scrolling through Facebook and came across a post by Fish, former lead singer of Marillion (who, if you know anything about me, you know were instrumental in my formative years). In it, he was announcing added dates for his upcoming “Road to the Isles” tour, which, he also announced, would be his last tour. After 15 studio albums (four with Marillion) and numerous live and collected records, he was hanging up the scarf and microphone.
Continue reading “Catching Fish in Warsaw”
We like to take day trips. It’s fun to jump in the car and go off exploring parts of Lithuania we’ve never seen before. Or at least parts which some of us have never seen before. Interestingly, I’ve probably seen more of the little out of the way places than either Rasa or Monki. All of which brings us to this past weekend, when Rasa decided we should take a little trip to Anykščiai.
Continue reading “Anykščiai – Ten Years Later”July 18
Thursday was the day we had booked for our big excursion. But when we woke up, Monki was still feeling the effects of her exciting night, so she decided she wasn’t up for a long bus ride and Rasa was going to stay with her. Fair enough.
We all went to breakfast together and got our pre-packed box lunch from the resort to take with us (yup, all-inclusive means if you let them know you’re going to be away for lunch, they’ll send you along with a pre-packed meal). Then we said good-bye, asked for a ride down to the bottom of the hill and away we went.
Continue reading “Crete Trip July 2024 – Part 3”July 16
We had such a good time the night before that most of us slept late on Tuesday morning. I say most, but not me. I was up early as always so I went out and read on the patio. By the time we all finally made it down for breakfast, they were closing the place up. We were the last ones there and there wasn’t much food left.
Continue reading “Crete Trip July 2024 – Part 2”
Getting the Hang of Thursdays 