When I was young, I just LOVED to blow things up. My older brother and I had a chemistry set with virtually every chemical sold in our inventory. While my brother was more into the scientific principals, my initial method was simply to mix everything together and see if anything happened…alas, nothing did.
My brother showed me a great apparatus and experiment which would make pure chlorine gas from Sani-Flush toilet cleaner. Imagine a maze of beakers, flasks and glass tubing, the final result of which was a green-colored gas building up in a receptacle. Amazing…..so…. Read More…
I published one of my short stories on Amazon as an E-book and sales have actually been pretty decent! The Book is called “Growing up Hippie – Living with the Rastas” and is an edited and longer version of the Rasta stories which were posted here last year.
For those who are unfamiliar, I am the founder and publisher of Hearth.com, a popular web site about wood stoves and related appliances which has been active since 1995.
When I first decided to start this informational hearth site, it was my goal to have 10,000 readers per month…now we have more than that number in ONE DAY. Stats for Fall, 2011, show 460,000 visitors in November alone, reading over 3 MILLION pages!
In fact, Hearth.com is the most read stove and fireplace publication in the world and perhaps the only independent source of hearth information on the internet or in print!
Let’s turn on the wayback machine and discover how Hearth.com came to be. Read More…
Note – as is mentioned in some other posts here, my wife and I lived on a commune called The Farm for a few years in the mid-1970′s. I will write up some of my own stories and outlooks on the experience, but for those who want to know what we were about, the following story by a fellow “farmie” should answer….
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The Farm: A Case Study in Creating a New Consciousness and Culture
by Milt Wallace
In the dance between developing individual consciousness and a newly evolving culture, small groups that are in some way isolated from the larger culture can play an important role in creating, incubating and beginning to stabilize the new ideas and values. As the Post Modern paradigm emerged in the 70’s and 80’s, The Farm, a hippy spiritual community was one such group. Because of its size, outreach, and spiritual depth, The Farm’s impact was significant.
Post Modern Culture had its beginnings more than a century ago, but the turbulent years which included the Cold War, the Vietnam and Korean Wars, the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, the Kent State killings, and much more ignited a cultural revolution that led many baby boomers to question the status quo, and to search for some new meaning to life. Travel any highway and you would find young people and some not so young along the road, leaving their middle class homes or aborting their college educations and looking for something new. Modern Consciousness and Culture had a long run with its roots in the 16th century, but as we passed the middle of the 20th century, many came to feel that things weren’t working so well any more. Read More…
I was born in Philadelphia in November of 1953 – a baby boomer, for certain, albeit on the younger end of that generation. Although many periods in history are full of upheaval and change, there is something unique about the speed and severity of the changes which started to occur as I entered primary school. The sequence of events are fairly well known, but to see them close at hand as a growing child was quite alarming. Read More…
I admit it.
I love Rhode Island.
Of course, I love and like a lot of places. But Rhode Island is very different. This may be due to it’s newness (to me), but time will tell if that is the case. I’ve been coming here for 6 years now and it still has not wore off…..
In the 1960′s counterculture the term “dosed” came to mean being fed a mind altering drug against your will and/or without your knowledge. It was most often used to describe doses of LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide) which were administered by slipping it into food and drink. Read More…
It completely amazes me that a failed (in life and love, etc.) writer of FICTION and promoter of selfishness and godlessness has become the newest darling of the right. I would write more on the subject, but I honestly don’t know what to say! The gulf between what the right wing claims to stand for (morals, compassion, religion) and the Fiction Writer are just too large. Ayn claims religion is WORSE than the opiate of the masses…which makes her more Marxist than Marx himself.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with being an atheist! I could claim that mantel myself. But there is something wrong with the evangelical right wing taking her in their new champion!
I’m a big fan of Apple Computer and Steve Jobs since I purchased my first mac in 1984. There is something special about people who follow their dreams – at seemingly any cost! Despite the pundits, his company has now grown to be the worlds largest (market cap) and most valuable brand – a serious accomplishment!
I think all of us would be wise to read the following passage from a commencement speech he gave in 2005. It regards deaths – but, actually, refers more to life – specifically how to live it.
