It was an up-and-down 2013 for my family and friends. Last night’s bowl game between Duke and Texas A&M seemed like an appropriate finish to the year. The Aggies were down 21 points at the half and yet miraculously pulled through for the win, thanks to Johnny Manziel’s phenomenal play and two last-minute, heads-up INTs by Toney Hurd, Jr and Nate Askew. We’ve made it to 2014. Oh, and this […]
In the interest of getting back to my purported purpose for starting this blog (that is, to get some brain exercise), I’m going to start posting some of the interesting stuff I’m learning — because despite my silence on here, I’ve actually been learning a lot. And I kind of want to share it. In March of 2012, I read this article in Wired magazine and immediately knew it would […]
It’s the Fourth of July, which means Americans celebrate all things American. My family is flying our flag from the front porch, we’re grilling hamburgers later, and we’ll be picking up some sparklers for when it gets dark. Maybe we’ll even go to the fireworks show if we’re especially motivated. Maybe. Daddy’s got to work in the morning. Last night when I was looking in a neglected closet for something […]
God, that was fun. I couldn’t have asked for a better Saturday. It started when The Big M took the Boy garage sale-ing. For $6 they picked up a really cool record collection from the 1940’s put in the World War II-era version of a CD storage case. Then our college friends Bill and Sylvia came to spend the day with us. We got to catch up, our kids got […]
Not blogging, obviously. 1) Listening to music. Current mix I’ve made and listened to a dozen times or more: Ultra Violet (Light My Way) — The Killers cover U2 The Dead Dog — Portugal. The Man. They Done Wrong/We Done Wrong — White Rabbits Apartment — Young the Giant Felicia — The Constellations Honest — Band of Skulls I Would Do For You — Slightly Stoopid Lasso — Phoenix Cough […]
Roughly ten years ago I read an article in Discover magazine about the technology of 3D printing. The printer takes data from a three-dimensional CAD drawing and translates it, layer by layer, into an object. At the time, its biggest use was in the military — using metal dust to manufacture screws and other parts on aircraft carriers. As you might expect, this technology was too expensive for any regular […]
I’ve been scanning more photos, and when my 7-year-old daughter dug these out of a box buried in a closet at my parents’ house, I flipped out. That’s me in the center, dressed as the camel. I was not quite four years old, and it was my pre-school’s Christmas pageant. I *loved* that camel costume. I mean LOVED it. Of all the costumes my extraordinarily talented mother ever made, this […]
My parents recently celebrated their 40th anniversary. In anticipation of their upcoming party I am scanning many old family photos for a slideshow. I had to share this series because it cracked me up so much. Picture this: Christmas, 1971, Austin, Texas. Newlyweds invite their parents over to open Christmas presents in the small, white, frame house they’ve dubbed “the honeymoon cottage.” The young husband is a technology geek, and […]
Why do intelligent, educated people feel they have to explain away their love of People magazine — or worse, deny its awesomeness? My friend Kathleen informed me that she once belonged to a book group composed of lawyers who made their book choices exclusively from recommendations in The Economist. They read things like a biography of Potemkin. Google tells me that this could be a) a Russian nobleman, b) a […]
Flabby Brain 