The View from Mudsock Heights: The Haitian Earthquake Brings Thoughts of Midwestern History

By Dennis E. Powell | Jan 21, 2010 at 17:13:48

The sheer vastness of the devastation in Haiti, a nation that was not a garden spot to begin with, is such that it is almost impossible to grasp. It appears that at least as many people as populate all of my county — every man, woman, child, and out-of-town college student — were killed. The mind lacks perspective for such things, even as a phrase like “a trillion dollars” is so big as to be meaningless.

The View from Mudsock Heights: The Joys of Heating the Whole House With a Woodstove

By Dennis E. Powell | Jan 12, 2010 at 17:3:44

Here we are, a third of the way through January and well into very cold weather, and I still haven’t fired up the furnace this winter. I don’t know if I will.

The View from Mudsock Heights: What Do We Do About the Asteroid Problem?

By Dennis E. Powell | Jan 7, 2010 at 19:52:21

The article caught my attention — how could it not?

It seems that the Russians are going to get busy and, if they work hard and fast, they will push an asteroid away from Earth before it comes close — maybe too close — in 2032.

The View from Mudsock Heights: Nothing So Sweetens Christmas Memories as the Passage of Time

By Dennis E. Powell | Dec 22, 2009 at 23:47:18

When Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol In Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas (the full title) in 1843, he chose to make the least frightening of his apparitions the Ghost of Christmas Past. That makes sense. Christmas memories tend toward the sweet.

The View from Mudsock Heights: To Enjoy Music, We Need to be Able to Escape Music

By Dennis E. Powell | Dec 17, 2009 at 22:11:9

The assault on, with, and by music continues, and grows. I love music, but I don’t know how long I can hold out, in a world in which escaping from music has become increasingly difficult.

The View from Mudsock Heights: A Scientific Scandal You Probably Haven’t Heard Much About

By Dennis E. Powell | Dec 4, 2009 at 9:55:18

Imagine, if you would, that a few weeks before Easter it were announced that the body of Jesus had been found, that it had been kept in an oh-so-secret crypt in the Vatican lo, these many years. That disclosure would be big news, wouldn’t it? It would put quite a crimp in the most fundamental tenets of Christianity. It would be pretty difficult to sustain the religion after that.

The View from Mudsock Heights: A Tiny Camera Can Make Big Pictures and Do It Well

By Dennis E. Powell | Nov 30, 2009 at 14:13:41

Having been raised as a photographer, I’ve always felt a little vulnerable if I didn’t have a camera on my person. For years I carried a Nikon or Leica film camera with me pretty much wherever I went, often as not along with a big camera bag made by Jim Domke, all crammed full of spare camera bodies and lenses and film and a few filters and more film and a strobe (which is what we used to call electronic flashguns). I didn’t need to go to the gym.

The View from Mudsock Heights: On Winter Nights, When the Universe Becomes Visible

By Dennis E. Powell | Nov 19, 2009 at 23:11:49

One of the best things about winter — yes, there are some — is how clear the sky gets at night.

The View from Mudsock Heights: The Hills Are Alive With Not-So-Cute Cartoon Animals

By Dennis E. Powell | Nov 13, 2009 at 0:33:9

Disney it ain’t. I think you know what I mean: all those lovely Walt Disney cartoon movies, in which the birds flutter lovingly around the sky, and the fawns gambol in the meadows, the butterflies flit about like ballerinas, and the ever-so-cute bunnies and squirrels and chipmunks scurry — the word probably was invented to describe cartoon rodents and lagomorphs — nearby.

The View from Mudsock Heights: The Supernatural Aspects of Computer Parts Justify a Big Collection

By Dennis E. Powell | Nov 7, 2009 at 22:7:35

My little scribbling this week comes to you from a 20-year-old, pristinely restored Northgate OmniKey keyboard. Back when the crust of the Earth was cooling and computing was young, the Northgate company was one of many upstarts that made very good personal computers. What set them apart, though, were their keyboards. They had a pleasant, clicky feel that many users loved. Northgate sold their keyboards separately, but apparently few people then bought their computers, too, so they went out of business. This made having a Northgate keyboard even cooler.