Saudi Arabia Builds Dystopian Nightmare City, Is Rewarded For It

What do you do when you have absolute power and near-infinite money? If you're Saudi Arabia, you build NEOM, a "smart" city which will feature The Line, a giant 170-kilometer long building stretching in a straight line across the desert. Yes, you read that right. Over 100 MILES long. One gigantic building with all the luxury and expense oil money can buy. If that sounds like something out of a George Orwell (or Aldous Huxley) novel, congratulations, you have more self-awareness than the Saudis. 

If you'd like further evidence that life is just a big cosmic joke, go no further than this announcement: Saudi Arabia will be hosting the 2029 Asian Winter Games at NEOM and The Line. Saudi Arabia. A country that is essentially nothing but baking-hot desert. That country. They're going to host a major winter sports competition. There is no possible punchline I can add to this. 

Picture(s) of the Day #7

So I visited a friend who lives near Boston this weekend. The drive took a ridiculous amount of time since I had to go three hours in the wrong direction to pick someone else up. Also, it was absurdly cold and we hit several severe snow squalls as we drove up. We went into the city on Saturday, but were stymied by even more severe cold and very strong wind. We're talking wind chills well below zero. And I forgot to bring my good camera. So, as a result, not a lot of pictures were taken. Well, that, and the fact is, I'm sure I'll get back to Boston at some point, preferably when the weather is nicer. Clearly, after the road trip to Chicago at the end of 2015, I wasn't clear enough about my road trip policy. But I'm putting my foot down this time. If I participate on a road trip during the winter, I'm going south. The end.

Anyway, here's the pictures I did take. The bar was a place downtown that had several dozen whiskeys on tap. It was very cool.

Picture(s) of the Day #6

It's been a little while since I did one of these. Winter isn't exactly the best time for really compelling photography. Everything is either brown, gray, or some strange combination of brown and gray. Unfortunately, most of the time, it's not really warm enough for outdoor activities, but at the same time, it's often not cold enough for winter activities. Especially this year, we have gotten almost no snow at all. Some people might not like that, but I'm just fine with no snow, because when the weather does one of its occasional winter warm-ups, I can go play some golf. And that's just what I did this past weekend. The golf course of choice? Black Rock Golf Course in Hagerstown, Maryland. I've played there before, and I do generally like it. It's not a difficult course, and it's pretty wide open. In other words, a good place for my first round of golf in more than a month.

Just keep in mind that golf courses never look very good in the middle of winter. This course normally looks a lot better. Still, the course was in pretty good shape, considering it's the middle of February. Maybe over the summer I can go back, and do a real review of the course with better quality pictures. We'll see.

Winter is Stupid

I would just like to go on record to say that I hate snow, I hate winter, and I can't wait for spring.  Seriously, I'm getting real tired of the cold.  Stuck inside for days on end, it's terrible.  When I went to Florida a month ago, I could tell that it wasn't my kind of place.  No mountains and way too many people.  But I'll give it this, at least it's warm.  I don't care how necessary winter's supposed to be, it's stupid and I don't like it.