About
Hi, I’m Gary Varner: a writer, traveler, and curious observer of life. Welcome to this site where I share my writing: contemplations about life, insights into subjects important to me, commentary on travels, occasional poems, creative writing, and more.
Several ways you can follow along:
- Bookmark this site to visit,
- Subscribe to new post email notifications (see footer),
- PayPal donate to help support the cost of keeping this site going (link coming soon…)
- Follow social feeds: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (links in footer), and/or
- Use RSS feeds to read new posts (link in footer).
My recent background includes retirement from corporate life (communications specialist) at the end of 2018, then spending a year downsized and living in a rolling, 21′ camper van wandering America and enjoying its natural wonders. After 2019, I sold the van and settled in Ann Arbor, MI, as my home base with lots of plans for more travel across America, Canada, and Scotland/UK. But thanks to Mr. COVID-19, our mutual unwanted societal guest, those plans have to wait.
To help during quarantined days, I opened an online stationery shop, Notegeist, to keep myself busy in a passion that connected me to the wider world. Although intending to write a lot during 2019, the shop consumed all mental energies, so writing went on hold too. Now that I’ve closed the shop (end of 2020), I’m devoting full-time to writing efforts.
I hope you enjoy reading along as I write, and I appreciate your time to read what I create. If you want to contact me for any reason, please use the contact form here.
And for you true geeks, I created a Colophon page on the nuts and bolts of this site at the bottom of this page.
A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving. – Lao Tzu
Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little. – Tom Stoppard
Site Colophon
Companies and components that make this site work:
- MailPoet – Service/Wordpress plugin driving new post notifications, Fresh Bits Newsletter magic.
- Simple WordPress Membership plugin – The core intelligence behind the membership (aka Supporter) program here.
- WordPress Envy Blog Pro theme by PreciseTheme with some significant PHP/HTML hacks and CSS customizing by yours truly.
- Fonts used: Google Special Elite (typewriter-look headers); Google Karma body fonts
- Owner’s fuel: Ann Arbor’s RoosRoost Lobster Butter Love coffee (god, that’s such good stuff…)