Where I've been and what I've learned along the way…
Welcome!
Remain calm, be kind, and carry on regardless!
You've reached the online journal of Richard Rathe — online since 2004! In this iteration I'm trying a few new ideas: minimal markup, working with mostly plain text, and moving beyond the timeline. Some refer to this as a Digital Garden. I call it BLIS (BLog It Simple). Find me online…
Manet's famous painting Un Bar aux Folies-Bergère never appealed to me. But now I realize its genius, and my spine tingles every time I see it.
The perspective looks all wrong. You're staring straight at this barmaid, but her reflection in the mirror is way off to right. Even worse, her reflection is facing a guy who doesn't appear in the main view!
But in 2000, a researcher showed this perspective is actually possible!!! To prove it, he did a photographic reconstruction of this scene. Check it out in my next post.
This blows my mind.
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Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest
California Galleries Plants Travel
2025
We recently visited the Bristlecone Pines within Inyo National Forest in the White Mountains of Eastern California. While there we took a five hour hike on the Methuselah Trail amongst some of the oldest trees in the world!
Road Trip West 6, The Longest (Weirdest) Day
Birds Flowers Galleries History Road_Trip_2026 Travel
2026
I planned to stay overnight in Flagstaff, AZ so I could visit the Lowell Observatory in the evening. Apparently they give tours during daylight hours and then setup smaller telescopes to view whatever's happening in the sky that night. Alas, dark clouds moved in and there was precip predicted for the early evening. So I went to bed early…
Road Trip West 11, Nine Mile Canyon
Birds Flowers Galleries History Road_Trip_2026 Rock_Art Travel
2026
We left Green River heading north to Wellington and the Petroglyph megasite known as Nine Mile Canyon. The backway road went over a small pass before descending into a beautiful flat-bottomed canyon. This is the best map I could find on the web. [source: National Scenic Byways Program]
Road Trip West 3, Petrified Forest
Birds Flowers Galleries History Road_Trip_2026 Travel
2026
The next day I had a three hour drive to my next destination—Petrified Forest National Park. The southern entrance is less used than the north but two of he major hiking trails are there: Crystal Forest & Blue Mesa. Unfortunately there is no trail to Newspaper Rock—a major Petroglyph site. It was cold and windy, but apparently I came at a good time to see the many desert flowers in bloom. 🙂
Picket Wire Canyon Dinosaur Tracksite
Critters History Travel Video
2019
On my trip west this year I made sure I had time to visit this unique area. The Dinosaur Tracks are located within and along side the Purgatoire River within the COmanche National Grassland. It is located 35 miles south of La Junta, CO off the lightly maintained County Road 25 (upper left in the map above). The last few miles are on a primitive forest service road that ends at the Withers Canyon Trailhead and Campground (four sites with fire grates and a pit toilet).
Arizona & Utah Rock Art
Galleries History Rock_Art Southwest_2024 Travel
2024
Photos of Petroglyphs (pecked into the rock) and Pictographs (painted onto the rock) from my most recent trip to Arizona and Utah. In some cases the panels are Palimpsests (newer inscriptions covering older, faded work).
Garden of the Gods (Illinois)
Birds Galleries Hdr Travel Video
2017
I had the opportunity to travel through Southern Illinois on my way back from Iowa in June. I large part of this hilly country is contained within the Shawnee National Forest There are miles of trails, several wilderness areas, and many points of interest. I stopped for the night at The Garden of the Gods (not to be confused with the area in Colorado by the same name!).
BWCA Canoe Trip 2024
Birds Bwca Galleries Photography Travel
2024
This year we decided to base our trip out of Ely. We spent the night in the bunkhouse on Snowbank Lake. The next day we took the short drive to the official entry point #27 to head out into the wilderness.
The Plague (Review)
Books History Reviews
Albert Camus (1947)
The Plague by Albert Camus is a allegorical novel set in the modern city of Oran on the north African coast. The principal character is Dr. Rieux, who confronts a series of medical, ethical and moral dilemmas as an epidemic of bubonic plague breaks out and the city is quarantined. Rieux must overcome his fear, loneliness and despair in order to function while conceding that he is mostly powerless in the face of his microscopic enemy. He is not alone. A number of memorable characters share his sojourn, each of them responding to the crisis in different ways: escape, repentance, debauchery, suicide, work, fantasy...
The Paria River begins up by Bryce Canyon and flows south through Grand Staircase Escalante and the Vermilion CliffsArizona. Just before it empties into the Colorado River it flows thru a deep slot canyon and this is where we hiked.
Notewell - Command Line Notetaker
Projects
2025
My take on Yet Another CLI Note Taking App. Moving from MacOS to Linux I'm in the process of moving some of my most important textual information from Apple Notes to… ?? This Perl script is my first attempt at a do-it-yourself solution.
Pikes Peak 2025
Birds Flowers Galleries Iowa Travel
2025
Pikes Peak is a state park in Clayton County, Iowa, United States, featuring a 500-foot (150 m) bluff overlooking the Upper Mississippi River opposite the confluence of the Wisconsin River… The Iowa incarnation of Pikes Peak, a particularly high point overlooking the gorge of the Upper Mississippi, and like Pikes Peak in Colorado, is named for Zebulon Pike. Pike visited the area in 1805 during his first expedition. [wikipedia]
Rebuilding the Food Pyramid
History Medicine Science
Willett & Stampfer (2003)
For more than ten years the U.S. Department of Agriculture has promoted its food pyramid as a guide to proper nutrition. The only problem is that it isn't very good advice! The authors of this January 2003 article in Scientific American provide much better guidance. But first a little history…
Stockon Island Camping Trip
Apostle_Islands Birds Camping History Plants Travel
2021
We made an amphibious landing to offload our gear and then moored the boat about a mile away at the pier. I pitched my hammock tent right on the beach between mature white and red pines. The level of Lake Superior had recently gone down so there was a more normal amount of beach exposed.
Epitaph of Edward Carter (1742)
History
1742
Farewell Vain World I have Enough of thee and now I'm Careless what thou Say'st of me. What Fault thou See'st in me Take Care to Shun. There's worke within thy Self That Should be Done. Thy Smiles I Court not, nor thy Frowns I fear. My Cares are past, my head lies quiet here.
RFK Jr. & the Pasteurisation Controversy
Commentary History Medicine
Lawrence P. Garrod (1944)
Consider the so-called War on Raw Milk. I was amazed to discover in my Grandfather's scrapbook an article from 1944 debating the benefits of unpasteurised (raw) milk. These are echoed today by the public health nihilist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
BLIS (BLog It Simple)
Projects
2024
BLIS is an alternative to Wordpress and other database-dependent online publishing environments. One obvious problem with such systems is portability. They generally store text in a database—while media such as images are stored in nested directories by date. It can be daunting to put all these scattered parts back together again outside the original site. (I'm working on converting my WP materials now…it may take several months!)
Panhandle Pitcher Plant Expedition
Galleries Nature Photography Plants Travel
2020
The last time I went hunting for Pitcher Plants was 2017. This year I went about two weeks earlier and learned more about their distribution and lifecycles. I visited six sites in all, moving from Florida into Alabama. I saw mostly pitcher plant flowers as I moved west, apparently the flowers emerge days to weeks before the funnel-shaped leaves.
Everglades Kayak Trip 2025
Everglades Galleries Photography Travel Video
2025
Just back from my 29th (!) wilderness trip in the Everglades! This year I went with my younger brother who is a veteran of a similar canoe trip in 2009. We made a tour of the four single chickees in the southern part of the park with an option to boomerang out to the Gulf of Mexico on the tides. The trip pretty much came off without a hitch. Only downside was the nightime temps were in the upper 60s with little or no wind… so we had bugs!
Duluth Aerial Ferry Bridge (1905)
Books History Technology
Thomas F. McGilvray (1905)
The northern city of DuluthMinnesota is famous for its Lift Bridge connecting the Canal Park area with the long sandy beach of Minnesota Point. However, the current bridge was not the first. The original structure was a more exotic Ferry Bridge. There are only a few examples left in the world. I found these images in a digitised book from that time.
BWCA Canoe Trip 2008
Birds Bwca Camping Galleries Travel
2008
I learned to canoe in Northern Minnesota and the BWCA. I recently returned for a five day trip with an old friend. We went to the extreme northeast corner along the Canadian border. The lakes in this area are mostly long and narrow, running west to east between steep hills. The water clarity was remarkable. We saw bear, beaver, loon, eagle, osprey, and many smaller birds. Our route included the Royal River, which was beautiful and very different from the large lakes. Wild Rice was falling into our canoe as we passed. At one point we even had to pull over a Beaver Dam.
There is No ‘I’ in AI
Commentary Technology
2026
My Critique of: Your Voice, Your Choice — A Guest Post by Claude Sonnet 4.5
The ELIZA Effect is a tendency to project human traits—such as experience, semantic comprehension or empathy—onto rudimentary computer programs having a textual interface.
Good Morning Doctor!
Books History Medicine
W.A. Rohlf (1938)
This little book was conceived neither as a medical history nor as a technical discussion of surgery. It is instead a story of people, of friends with whom I have shared joy and sorrow, in short, bits of the day-to-day drama which is the life of a country doctor. Many of the incidents are trivial, in one sense of the word, yet each has had in it something which appealed to me enough to make me remember it as a highlight in my forty-five years as a country doctor.
You've reached the online journal of Richard Rathe — online since 2004! In this iteration I'm trying a few new ideas: minimal markup, working with mostly plain text, and moving beyond the timeline. Some refer to this as a 
