Calendar, 2008

Once again, and for the second time in my life, I have become self-published.

I've put together another travel calendar for 2008, with pictures taken during my travels with Kathy.

I make no money off of this. It's available on a creative commons license. You can order the calendar here, or you can download a .pdf and print it yourself.

The calendar is 13.5" by 19", printed full-color on quality linen paper. It features Mexican, U.S., and Canadian holidays as well as astronomical events.

You're going to need a calendar anyway, so why not this one?

The cover photo, shown here, was taken in Croatia in 2001. I was guest of honor at the Croatian national convention, held in Zagreb, and the object of an enormous amount of warmth and hospitality, for which I remain grateful.

One afternoon my publisher took us out for a roundup of local attractions. We began with the birthplace of Tito--- the Marshal, not the Jackson--- an agricultural village that had, I suspect, been much spruced up in the days since young Josip Broz left home. We were taken to Vindija Cavern, once been inhabited by Neanderthals and which is now the home to bronze statues of Neanderthals. We visited the spectacular Marusavec Castle. We had a glorious lunch of local veal.

On the way home I snapped this picture of local church. The outline of the church may look a bit martial, and there's a reason for that.

After the Ottomans wiped out the Hungarian kingdom in 1526, Croatia was next on the menu. The Turkish practice at the time was to constantly raid civilian populations--- not for the loot and slaves, though they were happy to take these as well, but to convince the locals to abandon the district. Once the area lost its population, the Turks moved in.

Croatia was poor and couldn't afford a lot of castles, but it did have churches. So churches were built on hills and crags, to make them hard to attack, and built very large and stoutly, to defend against raiders. When the alarm was sounded, the entire population and their livestock took up residence in the church. Presumably a proper army would have made short work of them, but Turkish raiders didn't bring siege equipment with them, and the Croats were reasonably safe.

There are ruined churches on hilltops all over Croatia. The picture shows one that hasn't fallen into ruin, and which stands a monument to Croatian resistance against foreign oppression.