Island of Misfit Stories #6

The “last official” month of Northwest Summer is here, and the schedule is getting packed tightly with everyone trying to squeeze in all the sunny-day activities they can before the feared Return of the Grey (OK, maybe that’s more of a me thing).

I had a family wedding out of town the last weekend in July, celebrated my own anniversary this past weekend, and I’ll be doing a two-day writing intensive workshop this coming weekend … so, for my own sanity this week I think I need to skip putting together the full newsletter and instead I’ll put out the Island of Misfit Stories collection that I totally forgot about during all that fun stuff.

As always, these are the stories that didn’t quite fit in with the regular newsletter. In this edition, we’ve got ghost lakes, the NEW oldest human settlement in North America, a very strange idea about why a certain famous California fault line seems to be stuck, some terrific travel writing (and travel philosophy), and of course some AI-fueled tech idiocy for good measure. So let’s dive in!