http://www.alanbarclay.com News and Views from one fiction writer to the world. Sat, 16 May 2009 22:32:58 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Drove 7 hours yesterday to central BC. Now I'm spending the weekend helping my parent take care of their extensive yard. This morning I chopped ten large hunks of wood into 30 smaller hunks, hacked down two dead bushes, then I spent an hour trying to find a way to level ... http://www.alanbarclay.com/?p=63 Drove to Vancouver from Seattle yesterday afternoon and booked into the Jericho Beach Hostel. After a night at the surprisingly comfortable and civilized hostel, I did my HIIT in the Kits Community Center gym and relaxed in their giant jacuzzi. The community center shower room has an area with hand ... http://www.alanbarclay.com/?p=62 I am just appalled. NBC appealed to the Nevada State Supreme Court the day of the debate and the court reversed the lower court's decision. Dennis was excluded. I used to talk about corporate stiffling of free speech. Now I've seen it throttled for real. So sad. http://www.alanbarclay.com/?p=61 Yes, I'm wearing my political colors. Sometime I have to write an article about how democratic discussion has become a social faux pas.But right now, I want to urge you to watch the Nevada debate on MSNBC Jan 15, at 6pm Pacific. MSNBC tried to exclude Dennis from the debate ... http://www.alanbarclay.com/?p=60 Happy Holidays! 2007 has been good to us. Last Christmas season, we rented a new place in Shoreline (North of Seattle), a three-level condo with almost 1400 square feet and a nice location behind a wooded area. Much quieter than our old place in the U District! Also, early in 2007, Anne ... http://www.alanbarclay.com/?p=59 For many years, I've relied on Truthout.org to talk about the things that don't get full air time or full explanation on the major networks and news sources. Just a couple months ago, a couple of major internet service providers put the squeeze on them -- they started labelling all Truthout ... http://www.alanbarclay.com/?p=58 This last October 5 was the fiftieth anniversary of the launch of Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the Earth. Between, 1957 and 1969, only twelve years past, yet we went from orbiting the Earth to landing a man on the moon. In the face of such a burst of ... http://www.alanbarclay.com/?p=57 So all of the Democratic candidates have plans for some sort of wider health care system. It's about time. America is still the richest country in the world, yet we are only fourteenth (or even lower by some measures) in health and lifespan of our population. The only thing we ... http://www.alanbarclay.com/?p=55 July 4, 2007, afternoon in UTC-6 (aka US Central Time), I left the Kansas City airport and boarded a minibus heading for hotels downtown. The bus held the normal array of American travelers: a young man with a backpack, a couple of pairs of seniors, myself, a tall fiftyish man ... http://www.alanbarclay.com/?p=54 Welcome back! Or perhaps, as I'm the one who has been absent, I should say: may I come in? A years has passed since my last post. During that year, I've settled in to my new job at PATH, moved to the wilds of Shoreline, and made a transition from riding the ... http://www.alanbarclay.com/?p=53