Osler's Razor

As many of you may have surmised, I have been off the grid for the past several days, spending some time up at Osler Island in Canada.

Instead of turning the blog over to the French or to IPLawGuy (who is pretty busy this year), I put my novel out there, and I would love to know what those of you who read it thought.

Through Wednesday, too, I will be sharing some of my poetry that I wrote up there in this space. (If you hate it, well... it's short).

Meanwhile, the winner of the last haiku contest (over some great entries by Carrie and others) is Christine, for this haiku:

Puffy August clouds
a different gathering
we await a sigh

I'm not sure what she is describing, but I DO know some of Christine's personal history, which I will share here:

Born the daughter of a cigar-chomping Cornell grad and America's first female tugboat captain, it's not surprising that Christine quickly took to the water.

[A break here for a Cornell joke. Ok, this guy is out for a date with a woman. The woman says "Oh, you must have gone to Cornell!" The guy proudly asks, "how did you know? Was it my great taste in clothes?" She shakes her head "no." So he asks "was it my witty banter?" Again, the answer is negative. "Was it my knowledge of literature?" Getting another no, he finally asks, "how could you tell?" She responds, "Oh, I saw your class ring when you were picking your nose."]

Anyways, Christine soon took to the water, at first simply to help her mother drag ships away from rocky shoals. Soon, she was piloting freighters through the shipping lanes on her own, and by the time she was 18, she was able to haul loads of ore on her back as she traversed the Great Lakes.

Eventually, having earned a degree in Accounting from Miami University That's Not the One With The (formerly) Good Football Team, she took her talents to Florida, where she audited multinational corporations during the week and hauled giant loads of marijuana to shore on the weekends.

Now, Christine lives in North Carolina, where she herds dogs and owns a kitten mill. She is also the national age-group champion in elementary backstroke.