I get up pretty darn early every morning. I do this without an alarm. I just wake up, ready to go most days, between 2:30 am and 3:00 am. The mornings are when I do a lot of my writing. But tons of people use alarm clocks. They need them. Otherwise, they’d sleep right through

Buh-Buh-Buh-Buuuummmmm. Beethoven. We’d know those four notes anywhere.Even if you don’t love music. Even if you don’t love coffee. Yes. You heard me write. And right. Beethoven. Music. Coffee. It appears he was a bit of a coffee snob. Here’s the thing about him. That great composer, whose full name was Ludwig van Beethoven, was

Some days, I feel a little bit old.Like today. Old. But then I think about trees. They can be really old, and that will put things in perspective for anyone. The Great Basin bristlecone pines are the oldest known individual trees on Earth. Mature trees of that species are often 1,000–2,000 years old. But some

A few minutes ago, I was searching for something to watch.  I flipped through the channels on my TV with the remote control. It made me wonder. Who? What? Where? When? The remote control. It happened on September 25. In 1906. And it happened on the waterfront in Bilbao, Spain. A crowd gathered to watch

Not every day has to be remarkable. Some days merely need to be filled with content. Today, I am content. And I am so very thankful for that.  “”””””” “Be content with what you have. Rejoice in the way things are.”— Lao Tzu “”””””” “The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking

Trees are more than just trees. Take, for example, a single mature oak tree. If you take a close look, you will find that it is a million different things. Throughout its lifetime, one oak can do a whole heck of a lot. It supports hundreds of different species of insects, birds, mammals, fungi, lichens,

Here is something good. Every atom in your body has been on an incredible journey. You see, we are made of stuff from the Universe. The iron in our blood was forged in the heart of a massive star billions of years before the Sun existed. The calcium in our bones and the oxygen we

Most of us have heard this by now.Bananas are technically berries.Strawberries are not berries. But whenever I read this little fact, I have to think: How can this possibly make sense? Well. It is a science thing. It all comes down to how botanists classify fruit. Before we go any further, I wanted to know