Go, go, Amtrak Residency!

View from the Empire Builder train.

Yesterday, I applied for an Amtrak Residency.

Shah Ismail the First.

My goal is to take the Empire Builder train from Portland to Chicago to work on the first draft of my non-fiction work on the Safavid Empire (1501-1722), then visit the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago for further research and polish.

Back when I finished my first Master's degree, I knew I had a line on a fascinating and important time in history. I want to write a popular history to show the roots of modern Iran.

Another view of the great American landscape.

Wish me luck!

Random, awesome pictures.

I was browsing the Wikipedia Commons website and found too many cool things.

The library at the Vienna University of Technology. I've been there. Quite frankly, those owls are the most awesome library decoration, ever.

Lake Bondus in Norway. Can't you just see the dragons lurking in the mist?

Keeping with the bad-ass owl theme.

Peter Paul Rubens and his first wife, Isabella Brandt. I think she looks like a trouble maker!