INSOMNIA

My wife and I were both up just now, both of us suffering from that most damnable malady: insomnia.She's just gone back to bed and will likely catch a few hours to make up for the middle-of-the-night disruption.

I pretty much accept that I am up for the duration. It's 3:45 Pacific Time and the usual math runs through my head as "I will be up in an hour and fifteen minutes anyway, so if I go back to bed now it will take me a half hour to fall asleep, which gives me only 45 minutes of snoozing before the alarm sounds". In other words, not worth the effort.

Of course, the time I rise in the morning is completely arbitrary. I am currently not employed by a company which requires I be at an office at any given time, but have kept myself on that schedule. My father, who has come to live with us, rises at 7am and requires a number of things -- coffee, juice, breakfast -- which are part of his morning routine but he is unable to provide for himself.

So I sit here, in the dark, cocooned in its blanket of silence, writing a nonsense blog entry with virtually nothing to do with travel.

But a couple of items worthy of your distraction.

First, look up to the left hand side of this column and you will see the bright white box that is a link to the Harlan Ellison Books Preservation Kickstarter campaign. As many of you know, Harlan is a good friend of mine. He's a an immensely talented person and his works deserve long term care, a project another friend of mine, Jason Davis, has offered to take upon his shoulders given a successful finish to the campaign. I urge you to visit that link and read about the project, donating and/or sharing as your means allow. On behalf of Harlan and Jason, I appreciate any consideration on your part.


Secondly, I have just finished and submitted -- many months behind schedule -- the second entry of a nine article series for Project Torchwood, documenting the various filming sites around Los Angeles for the BBC/Starz television program Torchwood Miracle Day.

It's a fun little photographic project which gets me out of the house and on the road for mini-days, wandering around the LA area (some less savory neighborhoods than others) shooting buildings and settings such as downtown, Venice Beach and the well-known urban wilderness we call Griffith Park.

When part 2 is up I'll provide the link, but the first part can be viewed here.

(Looking up) I can see by the clock on the computer it's up to 4am, so I'm off to find something else to occupy my time. It's doubtless going to involve Photoshop...

Good morning. In three hours I'll put up the picture of the day. Wonder where we're going? Check in again and enjoy.


Steve