It is with enormous satisfaction and pride that I announce the publication of my first solo, book-length project, a Romania travel memoir called Backpacking with Dracula. Honestly, so many nights and weekends have been dedicated to working on this project for the past year and a half, I guess the prevailing…

I swear this is the last blog anniversary/reminiscing post I write – unless this thing is still up and gasping along after 20 years, in which case I’ll do whatever I damn well please, so shut up. On February 17, this blog turned 10 years old. This makes me the…

Brace yourselves for a Pretty Major Life Announcement (PMLA) that I myself can barely believe is happening. It’s been 11 years, seven months and some change since I quit my idiot-proof career at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, sold my car, my house and everything in it, bought a…

I already know what you’re thinking, so let’s address the question right out of the gate: is juggling a sport? There are wide ranging opinions on the subject, from snot-shooting, helpless laughs to those who argue that juggling is in fact an art form. I fall on the sport side…

I’m copying Pam Mandel and giving you a peek at my home office. Who’s next?

I’ve noticed a disconcerting trend lately. And by “disconcerting,” I mean annoying. To me. Honestly, this isn’t normally a difficult thing to accomplish, but this particular situation has gotten so out of control in the past year that it warrants both comment and mocking. Lately, when it comes time for…

Hi! Remember me? I used to blog here during the Clinton Administration. I’ve been a little busy hiding out in a yurt in the steppes of South Dakota, changing locations every third day under the cover of night for the past eight years, but I’m back now! Actually, I’m not…

The good people at BootsnAll, this blog’s host, took pity on the dull and generic appearance of ‘Every Notable Patch of Grass in Romania’ and offered to spruce it up for me on the condition that I dismantle my shrine to Chris and stop pestering his mother about his shoe…

Some of you may have noticed that my spelling (and when I remember, my vocab) is not in God Blessed American English, but the Queen’s English.  This is not because I have privately decided to affect an English writing style (and accent, a la Madonna).  Indeed, I am under contract…

This was the ‘About Me’ post for the former incarnation of this blog ‘Every Notable Patch of Grass in Romania’, which was retired when my Lonely Planet assignment wound down and I prepared to abandon my post in Romania for travel and the culinary delights of Italy Well, in truth,…