My orchid is back!

And ahead of schedule. Last year (technically still this year) my orchid didn't bloom until mid-January. But this year - voila!

Looks like I'll have to get a bigger pot soon.

Christmas time is here

Which means it's time for the music of Vince Guaraldi thanks to his work for "A Charlie Brown Christmas."

Interesting facts about Guaraldi:

• He was a life-long resident of the San Francisco area.
• According to this bio: " In 1971 he became an unofficial member of the Grateful Dead, jamming with them in Bay Area concerts while the group was between permanent keyboardists.
• He is on the back cover of the Grateful Dead's album Aoxomoxoa which was released in 1969.
• However, I can't find any recordings of Guaraldi with the band, which is so frustrating because there are so many recordings of Grateful Dead concerts in 1969 - 1971.
• (I blogged about Janis Joplin sitting in with the Dead back in 2011.)
• He died of a heart attack at age 47 during a gig.

Here is a short documentary about Guaraldi.

The sorry state of rail travel in the United States

To get an idea of how much worse rail travel is between the United States and Europe, consider this: 

There are 334 miles between Montreal and New York City, going almost directly south.

There are 331 miles between Edinburgh and London, going almost directly south.

A mere three miles difference.

But it takes 12 hours to get from Montreal to New York. Amtrak claims 10 hours, but in my experience it takes 12.

It takes 3 and a quarter hours to get from Edinburgh to London.

Even considering that passports must be inspected when crossing the international border between Canada and the United States, that's a ridiculous difference in the amount of time it takes to travel virtually the exact same distance.

It takes over 24 hours to travel from New York to Miami, a distance of 1100 miles. 

It takes 16 hours to travel the same approximately distance between Paris France and Maribor Slovenia, which includes four countries - France, Germany, Austria and Slovenia.

Something needs to be done about train travel in the US.