Category: Living

Photo by Joe Wilcox
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Meet Morla

This isn’t the first time featuring the neighborhood tortoise—but I have more information about her now. Let me start by calling bogus fairytale “Tortoise and the Hare“. The reptile moves with surprising speed and enthusiasm. I’m not so sure the rabbit would win in a contest.

Today I met the two house-sitters responsible for the tortoise, whom they call Morla. Supposedly she is female and about 25 years old—a youngster, which might explain her energy and enthusiasm. One-hundred-fifty years is not an unusual lifespan for this member of the Testudinidae family. The creature is social, too, and who would have guessed that? 

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Photo by Joe Wilcox
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The Cats of University Heights: Mates

Sunday night, Oct. 23, 2016, I crossed Monroe at Maryland, where the street makes a horseshoe that comes back to Maryland at Meade. A few houses down, two cats—almost certainly littermates—accosted me for attention. Were these two ever eager, meowing and rubbing on anything close; including me.

The cross-eyed one leaped to the sidewalk, rolling about and demanding pets fervently. The other did likewise, but never leaving the ledge and rubbing the bush repeatedly with her head. I shot more than 20 photos, using the Fujifilm X-T1 with Fujinon XF18-55mmF2.8-4 R LM OIS lens, but selected just two from among the last of them. 

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Society by Joe Wilcox
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Our Virtual Reality Future is Bigger Than We Think

A a general rule I never connect to public WiFi networks, which is fine except when attending an event at a hotel ballroom where T-Mobile cellular is like an apparition dancing around a Halloween grave. So as Wendell Brooks, CEO of Intel Capital, begins his speech, I sit typing narrative offline rather than tweeting live. There’s irony, I suppose, reporting old style, about investments in new innovations.

Welcome to the trials and travails of the Intel Capital Global Summit, which kicks off today and goes through October 26 here in San Diego. Looking at the lineup, I expect to hear about newfangled tech that would make news reporting so much easier if available—although 4G cellular data would be good enough right now. 

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Photo by Joe Wilcox
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The Cats of University Heights: The Colonel

Easily the handsomest street roamer in my neighborhood is The Colonel—and, yes, that’s his name. I spotted the furball six weeks or so ago, meeting his husband-and-wife owners at the same time. East Coasters, like me. Even better: New Yorkers. That NYC attitude and frankness is so refreshing! Love it! They’re also renters, but a house with their first lawn ever.

Back East, The Colonel was an indoor pet, who spends more time outdoors now that he is a Californian. (Year is long enough to establish residency, right?) The cat doesn’t roam too far from home but moves about enough to have lost weight. 

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