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 "Beneath Cappadocia's crumbling surface, a marvel of equally gargantuan proportions lay hidden away for centuries; a subterranean city that could conceal the whereabouts of up to 20,000 inhabitants for months at a time"   Read more

Photo credit: Halil Sayim 

Her raven hair,
now beautiful grey,
moves me to tears,
when I hear her say,
"Who are you?"
"Why are you here?"
"Have we met before?"
quote my wife of 65 years.

Crimson the sky,
smoke of fire,
ash in the air,
stokes my desire,
to be alone,
thinking of you.

Just another break
in the sea.
A body of land,
large enough
for you and me.
Call it an Isle,
a place for
us to escape
and the
World to see.

I had completed what I hoped was my final draft of my newest humor book, The Secret to Success and Happiness,  I was using Amazon’s publishing division called Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). I had compiled a list of questions to which I needed answers in order to fix several book formatting issues their online system had flagged. I decided I needed to call their tech support team for help..... Read more

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Saturn is the most distant planet of the Solar System easily visible to the unaided eye. With this extraordinary, long-term astro-imaging project begun in 1993, you can follow the ringed gas giant for one Saturn year as it wanders once around the ecliptic plane, finishing a single orbit around the Sun by 2022. Constructed from individual images made over 29 Earth years, the split panorama is centered along the ecliptic and crossed by the plane of our Milky Way galaxy. Saturn's position in 1993 is at the right side, upper panel in the constellation Capricornus and progresses toward the left. It returns to the spot in Capricornus at left in the lower panel in 2022. The consistent imaging shows Saturn appears slightly brighter during the years 2000-2005 and 2015-2019, periods when its beautiful rings were tilted more face-on to planet Earth.

Photo by Tunc Tezel

Searching for something to change my thoughts to those more pleasant.

Waste not the water.
in a life so extreme.
Conserve, as we must,
reducing usage
wherever you can.
Be the Savior today,
and a strong man,
whatever you say,
as you are the future.
What else can I say?

Blue Heron hunting for dinner

Bright the water,
crystal and clear,
as current passes.
Work is done.
Long will
I love you,
until our destiny
has come.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

The annual Perseid meteor shower was near its peak on August 13. As planet Earth crossed through streams of debris left by periodic Comet Swift-Tuttle meteors rained in northern summer night skies. But even that night's nearly Full Moon shining near the top of this composited view couldn't hide all of the popular shower's meteor streaks. The image captures some of the brightest perseid meteors in many short exposures recorded over more than two hours before the dawn. It places the shower's radiant in the heroic constellation of Perseus just behind a well-lit medieval tower in the village of Sant Llorenc de la Muga, Girona, Spain. Observed in medieval times, the Perseid meteor shower is also known in Catholic tradition as the Tears of St. Lawrence, and festivities are celebrated close to the annual peak of the meteor shower. Joining the Full Moon opposite the Sun, bright planet Saturn also shines in the frame at the upper right.

Photo by Juan Carlos Casado

I've loved you forever,
it's what you
should know.
It matters not,
if you no longer
love me, as
your memory, or
our life together,
disappears into
the night.
It only matters
for me to know.