Sometimes it’s a Different Kind of Power That Truly Matters: an Open Letter to Arion Bank

The landscape up north, between Egilsstaðir and Mývatn. Lots of barren gorgeousness. 

These days there's a lot of talk here about tourism-gone-rogue, with our over million visitors per year becoming less and less manageable as far too many of them continue to underestimate (in their attempts to take that perfect tourist photo?) how dangerous our landscape is. 

Please play safe here during your stay!

Also in the news is the excellent profits made by our banks in 2015. Though financial stability and gain are symbolic of a healthy economy overall, there's never much joy in reading that kind of news for the average struggling Jón and Stína trying to make ends meet. But if your business, say an advertising agency or print shop or furniture supplier or interior design firm or

Still, Step Outside of the City and Find the Heart of the Land Again

Looking over to Grábrókafell from its crater-kin, Grábrók (Grey-Pants). They last erupted ca. 1600BC

I made a little bit of a commotion with the last few posts, baring frustration at how systems (human systems) can get so complicated so easily, and how hard it can be for a society to find its way into the future with integrity and heritage intact.

On that note, I thought about how much of dire challenge it's always been to live here on this island. It's not just the cold, but the incessant volcanic activity as well. According to data gathered by Jón Frímann Jónsson on his website, Iceland geology, there've been at least 200 eruptions

There's a Fine Line Between Opportunity and Opportunism, Isn't There?

The view in front of our home on Njálsgata 

Wow, ok, running with my recent time warp theme, I'm going to share the text from this post from exactly four years ago. There's nothing Valentine's Day-ish about it, except for the fact that I love my island homeland (California, I love you too!) and our fólk, and am sad when our darker side exposes uncomfortably. No one, and no country or nation or peoples is perfect, but I still believe we have a better chance, given our small population, to make our country a model state. 

I encourage you to go to the original post and read the excellent comments from my most loyal readers, who've stuck with this blog through thick and thin, and two of whom

It's Like a Time Warp Happened and the More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

Our Tjörnin

I was looking through old posts, which is very entertaining for me as I always find something I'd forgotten all about. This is one of those things. The photo is of our Tjörnin town lake, taken from the western side and looking over to Skólavörðurholt. The lovely Fríkirkjan church and the National Gallery of Iceland are there lakeside on the righthand side of the picture, and up above and to the left of the Fríkirkjan spire is Hallgrímskirkja, dressed in scaffolding and webbing for renovation.

It's not the photo, though, that interests me today, but the text. It seems so

Every Day There's a Bit More Sun to Fill Our Hearts

A view from the top of the Hill

Iceland Eyes classic: It's that time of year when the sun presents full over the eastern horizon by 9 am, arctic style. That's relatively early, given that only a solstice ago it was barely peeking up over the Reykjanes range by lunchtime. Now deep winter seems miles away, and it's the new light, and the songs of hopeful birds in (though) still-leafless trees, that keep our faces turned toward a summer we know will one day come again.