I could never imagine living in Southern California, but this region of the world has pretty much always served the same role for me. It’s basically the exact role in my life that it pitches to everyone everywhere at all…
Tag: But the Past Isn’t Done with Us
Yale Retakes the Lead
It’s been a good week. Emily got word yesterday that Yale is offering to pay her tuition for two years should we choose to move to New Haven. This is the third piece of good news in five business days…
Our Month with Cancer
One month ago tomorrow, Emily and I were driving up from Fresno and talking about life and her family. We’d just spent a restful New Year’s weekend with a partial incarnation of the Garin Clan and noticed that her Mom…
Twenty-Five Things About Storey You Never Knew to Ask
The latest viral meme to hit Facebook has taken off faster than most anything. I’ve been trying to figure out the vibrant appeal in the simplicity of “say 25 things about yourself”. I think it comes down to just listing…
Midweek Roundup
Periodically, I’ll get to the point where I’m almost incapable of writing new posts because every post idea I have is an old half-cooked one from two and a half weeks ago. And at the point at which there are…
That Old East Wind’s a-Gonna Blow…
This morning dawned unseasonably warm and strangely lit, with a strong wind blowing in from the east. I don’t know about you, but I grew up especially cognizant of east winds. They represent a reversal of order, a wind of…
2008
Somewhere along the way, Time Magazine lost its way. Maybe it was the influence of AOL, long nicknamed “A-O-Hell” by my generation, which itself is somewhere between the nickname of “Generation Y” and “The Millennial Generation”. I’ll take either one,…
Western Civilization
On the train ride into work this morning, I wasn’t able to get a seat. The train was running just late enough to pick up enough stragglers to sell all the seats just before Downtown Berkeley. I had to stand…
Diminishing Temporal Returns
Despite how it may sound, this post is not about the stock market. At least, not directly. People often wonder why it seems like life is speeding up as they go, why it seems that an hour just doesn’t mean…
Walking on Broken Glass: Kristallnacht and Thanksgiving
Today is the 70th anniversary of the infamous Kristallnacht, the pogrom that history remembers as the opening salvo of the Holocaust. It was a gargantuan riot that killed 91, hauled 30,000 into concentration camps, and left thousands of synagogues and…