What does this blog have in common with Rip van Winkle?

Well, like ‘ol Rip, the blog is waking up after a very long nap.  Eight-plus years, to be exact, since my last posting.  For several reasons, such as being lazy about writing, I lost interest in doing a blog.  What’s changed?

Last summer, I wrote a little photo-illustrated story about the dramatic declines in water levels my partner, Judy, and I observed in Lake Powell and two other reservoirs in the Southwest.  I was just going to send it out to friends in a mass emailing.  Then I figured it was pretty good and decided to send it off to the Canyon Country Zephyr, an off-beat, on-line publication that dealt with contemporary issues and modern history of Utah canyon country.  To my amazement, the editor Tonya Stiles, liked the article and offered to publish it in the August-September issue.  The article garnered more than 40 comments, mostly from friends whom I’d begged to read and comment on it, but also from people I didn’t know.

With encouragement like this, I submitted two more articles which were published in subsequent issues.  Another was sent for the February-March 2022 issue and I was ready to make more trips to Utah, etc. to report on the ever-worsening water situation.  Then, three weeks ago, I received some very bad news:  the Zephyr was ceasing publication after 32 years.  

Thus, I emailed the latest article (on a different subject) to a bunch of friends and colleagues.  In this case, it was an article about switching from a gas to an electric hot water heater.  Not the sort of subject matter that keeps readers on the edge of their seats and yet I received lots of positive feedback, interesting commentary on renewable energy, and encouragement to keep writing.  And so, I decided to start publishing again on my blog.

The blog was originally created in 2011 at the suggestion of the International Erosion Control Association (IECA) when I proposed an around-the-world trip to speak at two of their conferences in New Zealand and Spain, a related conference in Serbia, and a workshop on debris flows and landslides in China (I was not a speaker at that one).  Eventually, the blog was split in two: one blog to cover the four conferences/workshops; the other dealing with other aspects of my travels where I could spout my opinions without offending the sensibilities of IECA members.   

I realize that I’ve written lots of stuff and taken tons of photos over the years, so why not share those along with new articles?  I’ll start with the recent articles from the Zephyr and go on from there.  I welcome your comments but please, let’s not turn this into an “anti-social” media site where personal attacks proliferate.