Hello, and welcome to the end of another year! You’ve probably unofficially stopped working already, since the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas is universally understood to be a time for ‘wrapping things up,’ which is universally understood to mean ‘putting things off for as long as possible.’ This is the perfect time of year to…
As some of you may know, my wife is an organic chemist. In case you didn’t have to suffer through organic chemistry in college, it’s the class that makes aspiring doctors say, “I think I might just work in a vineyard instead.” Her doctoral thesis has the impressive distinction of somehow being written in English…
There are a lot of numbers in my life. There are telephone numbers, of course, a few of which I still have accidentally memorized even though there’s no reason to waste my brain juices on that kind of thing anymore. I’ve got credit card numbers, bank account numbers, height, weight, age, cholesterol (is it still…
Right now I’m writing this on my laptop, which is sitting right where it’s supposed to be – in my lap. The TV is on, the temperature in my house is a perfectly even 72 degrees, and nothing is on fire. If my refrigerator were within reach of my couch, I would never have to…
My wife and I occasionally argue about the merits of napping. She has a hard time switching off and disconnecting, and trying to do so is often more stressful for her than it is to simply keep working. I, on the other hand, try to take a nap at least every day. Except for a…
Greetings, my people! I write you today before heading of to Louisville, which I have learned is a city that is properly pronounced by only using the letter ‘l’ and an optional ‘v’. The city should really be spelled Lllllllllllvlllll, which would make it much easier for strangers to fit in. It’s an economy of…
History can be annoying sometimes. Usually I like learning about how people and civilizations got to be where they are. It’s supposed to be instructive, and besides it makes me feel like I’m more well-traveled than I really am. Have I seen a Sumerian ziggurat? No, but I know that was once a thing. That…
Well, there’s no getting around it – summer’s about to arrive. After months of blissful cold and weeks of glorious rain and mud everywhere you look, we’re about to be stuck with sunshine and clear skies for a few months. And trust me, I know how depressing that is. Personally I wish we could live…
As many of you know, I have a Golden retriever named Pancake. He’s 9 months old now, and I’m beginning to wonder if getting him was a good investment since he has so far shown absolutely no interest in retrieving any gold for me. But he’s cute, and I’m choosing to interpret his insistence on…
So it’s New Year’s resolution time, and everyone’s trying to figure out how to have a better year than last year. For myself, I’ve decided to learn French, and I’m going to continue my longstanding policy of not poking sharks. I have a lot of faith in the not-shark-poking one working out, but I’m not…