Home again, home again, jiggety-jig. I arrived to an insurance company’s decision to total our rear-ended car for an amount that won’t allow us to buy a similar vehicle in the region, a dog needing an expensive outpatient surgery that’s only available halfway across the state, and other assorted household emergencies. I wanted to share […]
[Continue reading...]Long days at the internship
July 27, 2013 By
I haven’t been this tired since those 15 months of sleepless nights after Lucas was born. It’s enough, perhaps, to say that this internship has been, and will continue to be, transformative. I’m working with 17 amazing people who set the bar higher every day. Days are long, work is hard, and everyone is at […]
[Continue reading...]Grateful
July 19, 2013 By
Someone recently asked me what my greatest achievement has been, and my answer, without hesitation, was family. I’m lucky to have come from a ridiculously functional extended family, as there I learned many of the lessons I’ve applied in my own marriage to Fang. In just about any marriage, the challenges facing one spouse become the […]
[Continue reading...]RBOC, guppies and tech support scams edition
July 16, 2013 By
Here, I’ll admit it: The guppies were a bad idea. But because the boy likes them, I will continue to distribute them for free through Craigslist, perpetuating the 2012-13 Boise Guppy Pyramid Scheme. Once the two big mama guppies die, we’re going all-male, guppy stewardship wisdom be damned. (None of our males fight with each […]
[Continue reading...]Impostor syndrome and what I value
July 12, 2013 By
A few months ago, I wrote a post about impostor syndrome in academia. Honestly, I don’t suffer from impostor syndrome much anymore, and I like to think this is because I’m confidently eccentric rather than arrogant. But the journey to this point was long, peppered with lessons that sometimes were revelatory in the moment and sometimes […]
[Continue reading...]Stick a fork in me
June 30, 2013 By
Anyone care to guess at what exact moment I climbed out of the pool today? The next few days are going to be fun, too. But hey, thanks to the Clutter Museum archive, I have some perspective: things could be worse.
[Continue reading...]Energized
June 23, 2013 By
I’ve been experiencing what Fang and I term “bad brain chemicals” lately (and so has he, which sucks, as in the past our serotonin receptors have taken turns being on the fritz). Such chemical blues happen occasionally, and I muddle through, because, as I’ve noted before, I’m a high-functioning depressive–my sense of obligation to others […]
[Continue reading...]The humanities as navel-gazing
June 21, 2013 By
David Brooks writes that the humanities went to hell in a handbasket half a century ago. He explains what humanities instruction used to be and what it should become once again. The job of the humanities was to cultivate the human core, the part of a person we might call the spirit, the soul, or, […]
[Continue reading...]Google Street View as time travel
June 19, 2013 By
I admit it–I’ve used Google Street View to revisit places I used to live, and it’s fun to see our cars still parked in the driveway or on the street. The views will be updated eventually, of course, but I enjoy the feeling of being transported into the past when it’s presented by Google as […]
[Continue reading...]“Big tent” technology
June 18, 2013 By
Let’s begin with a few U.S. maps published recently. Here’s one, built at the National Day of Civic Hacking, of every public library branch (and a few bookmobiles) in the contiguous U.S.: And here’s a similar map of every museum in the lower 48: Note the dearth of such cultural institutions in large swaths of […]
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