Lake Llanquihue (Spanish: Lago Llanquihue), pronounced close to "Yankee way", is a large freshwater lake in southern Chile. Roughly triangularly shaped, it is about 40 km across in its widest points, and has a total area of close to 900 kilometers: making it about a third of the size of Rhode Island or Luxembourg. It is also deep, reaching 300 meters in places.

The lake was formed by glacial action, with glaciers coming off of the adjoining Andes Mountains depressing the land and forming moraines. At the end of the last ice age, the retreat of the glaciers left the lake. It drains to the Pacific Ocean via the river Maullin. The eastern shore of the lake is next to the Andes, and is at the base of Osorno Volcano, and very close to Calbuco Volcano. The western shore of the lake is surrounded by verdant farm land, as well as the tourist oriented towns of Puerto Varas and Frutilla.

Lake Llanquihue is ridiculously scenic. The…

Happy Birthday to me. I am 40 today.

I know 40 is a subjective number in a giant pile of subjective numbers, but this age is hitting me harder than I had expected. I thought I would sail right through. I was rather wrong.

Turning 30 felt easy. I just kept being whatever it was that I had been, and there was no skip in continuity. No greater philosophical evaluation of life or technique. Just the changing of a number. This is different somehow. I suppose it's part…

Paul Manafort is a longtime political fixer, and was for a relatively short time Donald Trump's campaign manager.

At this writing, he is, as well, a jail resident awaiting trial for a boatload of financial crimes (though, it must fairly be noted, not campaign crimes). Here are a few handy tips about how not to get caught committing crimes, taken from Manafort's examples.

1. Don't send incriminating documents via unencrypted emails. Manafort was caught crime-ing in…