Where I've been and what I've learned along the way…
Welcome!
Remain calm, be kind, and carry on regardless!
You've reached the online journal of Richard Rathe.
I started posting to the web in 2004! In this iteration I'm trying a few new ideas: minimal markup, working with mostly plain text, and moving beyond the timeline. Some refer to this as a "Digital Garden". I call it BLIS (BLog It Simple).
Most are familiar with the concept of FUD—short for Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt. It summarizes a strategy often used in marketing and political propaganda. Its effects are pernicious, divisive and lead to exploitation. Examples abound. Fear is a strong motivator! To resist FUD one must understand how it is practiced using the principles of Deception, Obfuscation and Misdirection.
Dave's Iris
Flowers Galleries Nature Photography Plants
2025
My neighbor Dave transplanted these roadside Iris plants to our local drainage ditch. The seeds must be spreading down stream with new plants and flowers popping up at each culvert. 🙂
Meteor 3p Tent (Review)
Camping Reviews Tents
2025
This nominal Three Person Tent from Sierra Designs is an asymmetrical, rectangular, wedge design. The asymmetry shifts the maximum interior height towards the head end where it is most useful. The sides (and doors) are nearly vertical thanks to a short spreader pole across the top.
Hammock Camping Guide
Camping Hammocks Reviews
2025
There are various configurations of campinghammocks that I'll outline below. Most are gathered with single tie-on points at each end. Some have integrated bug nets. Complete packages come with both nets & rainflies. After a brief survey of the different types, I go on to propose my criteria for the Ideal Hammock.
Santa Fe River Day Trip
Birds Galleries Travel
2025
Out with friends to canoe down the Santa Fe River in north Florida. We saw many large turtles sunning themselves along the way plus a juvenile bald eagle! Stopped for lunch in the outflow from Blue Spring.
Everglades Talk (Audubon Jan 14 2025)
Everglades Galleries Travel Video
2025
My Presentation to the Sante Fe Audubon Society on Jan 14 2025, including photos and personal stories from 28 wilderness trips over 25 years! I've canoed, kayaked, and sailed most of the navigable areas. In the talk I briefly cover the geology, hydrology, flora, fauna, and history of this unique national treasure.
Everglades Kayak Trip 2025
Everglades Galleries Photography Travel Video
2025
Just back from my 29th (!) wilderness trip in the Everglades! This year I went with my younger brother who is a veteran of a similar canoe trip in 2009. We made a tour of the four single chickees in the southern part of the park with an option to boomerang out to the Gulf of Mexico on the tides. The trip pretty much came off without a hitch. Only downside was the nightime temps were in the upper 60s with little or no wind… so we had bugs!
BWCA Canoe Trip 2024
Birds Bwca Galleries Photography Travel
2024
This year we decided to base our trip out of Ely. We spent the night in the bunkhouse on Snowbank Lake. The next day we took the short drive to the official entry point #27 to head out into the wilderness.
Total Eclipse & Snake Road
Birds Galleries Science Travel
2024
Last week I traveled with my Sister Diana to Southern Illinois hoping to experience the Total Solar Eclipse. We were not disappointed! We had mostly blue skies that day with some high stratus clouds. Nothing can really prepare you for the moment of totality. We could suddenly see “stars” (actually the planets Venus and Jupiter) in the odd twilight. It got perceptively cooler and the wind changed direction.
Patent Medicines in the Age Before Scientific Pharmaceuticals
Galleries Medicine
1930
My Wife's Grandfather worked as a chemist for The Tilden Company in Upstate New York during the early 1900s. As a result we came into possession of his Recipe Book for the plethora of nostrums and remedies he helped create. Some of the ingredients are still sold today under various brand names. Some are humorous, others are forgotten, while still others are downright dangerous. The following installments are my exploration of this unique window into the medical past. [Note: We donated the actual book to the historical section of the National Library of Medicine.]
Keep It Simple Text Markup (KIST)
Audio Galleries Kist_Markup Programming Projects Video
2024
KIST combines the best elements of various markup formats I've worked with over the past forty years. The original purpose of these tools was to quickly generate valid HTML. The plain text source files are nearly universal and reusable!
BLIS User Guide & Technical Details
Programming Projects
2024
Meta tag modsecs must be present or the file will be treated as a non-article. This should be the system time in seconds that the source file was lasted updated (as returned by the Perl `time` function).
Desert Solitaire (Review)
Books Everglades Reviews Travel
Edward Abbey (1968)
I had the good fortune to pick up this paperback copy of Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey for reading material on my Recent Everglades Trip. It is an excellent book for both the stories and the perspective on our National Park System (of which the Everglades is a part). With all the tent time I read most of it by the end of the trip.
Good Morning Doctor!
Books History
W.A. Rohlf (1938)
This little book was conceived neither as a medical history nor as a technical discussion of surgery. It is instead a story of people, of friends with whom I have shared joy and sorrow, in short, bits of the day-to-day drama which is the life of a country doctor. Many of the incidents are trivial, in one sense of the word, yet each has had in it something which appealed to me enough to make me remember it as a highlight in my forty-five years as a country doctor.
Ephesus Ruins in Turkey (Gallery)
Galleries Hdr History Panoramas Travel Turkey_2016
2016
Richard Rathe 2016 (HDR, History, Panoramas)
Vermilion Cliffs
Galleries History Panoramas Southwest_2024 Travel
2024
We made several day trips to Lee's Ferry Utah while waiting for our other adventures (Paria Canyon, Coyote Buttes & The Wave) to start.
A Non-Tesla Owner's Thoughts on Tesla
Commentary Reviews Technology
2024
I recently did a trip with a friend in his new Tesla Model Y. (St. George, UT was the furthest west). I was amazed at how many Tesla-branded charging stations there were, and how integrated they are with the vehicle. You tell the dash navigation system where you want to go and it will route you based on your current charge, the distance, need for re-charge(s), and charging station locations.
Trekker Solo Tent 1V (Review)
Camping Reviews Tents
2024
This One Person Tent from River Country Products is a clever hybrid of single and double layer designs. The head of the tent has generous mesh panels for ventilation. The foot is completely enclosed in waterproofed nylon, allowing the rainfly to be much smaller (saving weight and volume). This is a unique design I have not seen elsewhere.
Everglades Kayak Trip 2024
Everglades Galleries Photography Travel Video
2024
This year we planned an aggressive trip—going down the Gulf Coast to access the narrow Wood River, revisit Camp Lonesome, stay at Willy Willy, and then loop back through the various inland bays on our return. Yet again we were thwarted by adverse winds.
Action Journaling (AJ)
Projects
2022
I developed this todo list format in 2016. It allows you to easily translate from paper to digital—and back again! This approach is compatible with other journaling formats such as KIST, Bullet Journaling and GTD.
Everglades Kayak Trip 2023
Everglades Galleries Hammocks Travel Video
2023
This year we returned to the northern part of the park. The original plan had been a grand tour loop with two beach sites and two chickees. However, the forecast was calling for high winds on the last two days where we would be exposed out on the Gulf of Mexico. On the drive down I called and amended our permit to camp at Lopez River on the last night.