Recent posts
Russia’s Espionage War in the Arctic
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Nov 09, 2024
This piece is illuminating — drawing together many political and cultural threads,—to weave a picture of one of the planet’s most remote regions,—that somehow also seems to mirror what is happening in locales more central to world and local affairs. Even your own town.
American Football Retirees
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Oct 29, 2024
American Football takes a toll. And the players are starting to get the full picture. They don’t want to mortgage their future health for a ballgame.
on the Impermanence of All Storage Mediums
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Sep 14, 2024
Is it possible that we will all come back around to paper and pencil as the best option for cross generational, cross millennial, transmission of information and culture?
An exciting upcoming chess rematch
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Aug 23, 2024
This story will be worth following. And might be as close to “must see livestream TV” as a chess match could ever get. I’m hoping to watch. Will I remember … Hopefully so.
There's also liquid water on Mars
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Aug 22, 2024
Yes, there’s ice. Ice is frozen water. But there’s also liquid in those hills. Can we glimpse the earth’s future here? How was the water cycle disrupted and the atmosphere destroyed?
Now
This is a now page. Essentially an answer to the question, “What have you been up to recently?” I update this page as the focuses of my daily life ebb and flow.
Feeling
I broke my Wordle streak this weekend - not on purpose - and I still felt fine about it. Didn’t even a slight pang of regret. Which felt like progress. Getting a bit of unencumbered enjoyment out of Wordle is the main reason I picked it up again.
I am feeling vaguely adrift. I’ll just leave it at that. I am also feeling proud of my kids for what they’re up to this school year - the progress they’re making.
I am also feeling physically beaten up. A new plantar wart developed near the heel of my left foot and it is dramatically impacting my steps. I am practically hobbling around. I am also still contending with the slight dizziness that I’ve felt since our Chicago trip last April. Yes, I’ve had sea legs since April - every moment of every day - except for a few hours one evening at the tail end of September. I’ve been dedicating myself to doing the Epley Maneuver every morning. All the while I’m worried that I’ll be stuck with these floating sensations for the rest of my life.
Thinking
On which day should I try to carve out music recording time? For how long? Should I get to that Christmas album?
On which days should I play pickleball with the seniors over at the Rec?
Will I ever actually get to know somebody here? What are the chances that my constant curiosity and reportage mindset will stop irritating those close to me?
Watching
The Fielder-verse.
- The Rehearsal
- Nathan For You
- Scavengers Reign
Listening
- Javelin, Sufjan Stevens
- Again, OPN
- Tim Hecker discography
- Cousin, Wilco
Reading
- The New Yorker
- The Waste Land: A Biography of a Poem
- Fates and Furies, Lauren Groff
Recent notes
Just now Google Gemini told me that Matt Lauer, Katie Couric, and Meredith Vierra all graduated from The University of Iowa.
- Mon. Nov. 11, 2024 02:33:35 AM
“12When you sin against them in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. 13Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall.”
How far does this extend? is a question I’ve long had.
- Sun. Nov. 03, 2024 04:14:35 PM
Up early-ish (but never early enough for my conscience) to ready. Nearing the final 100 pages of Plot Against America. The book is picking up steam and seems headed for a tidy resolution. Taking him to class today - Lady Raider donut party - another party. Then maybe fulfilling my dream of a pickleball late afternoon in the autumn shadows.
- Sat. Oct. 19, 2024 01:06:13 PM
There was a school lunch worker who often came by my crossing corner and would give me a donut out her car window. I haven’t seen them recently. I am worried that they were fired for giving me those donuts.
- Fri. Oct. 18, 2024 03:13:15 PM
The fact that apple has a global database of ear shapes is both inspiring and very odd and dystopian. I’m not trying to say they’re up to anything nefarious - they use them to determine the shapes of AirPods and other heaphones.
- Wed. Oct. 16, 2024 07:21:33 PM
is it possible that changing my font will make me a better person? or make me more productive? i feel like i’ve been secretly asking that question for around 25 years.
- Fri. Oct. 11, 2024 10:00:17 PM
One little thing I low key love about being a crossing guard is that I can stand at my corner and fart as much as I care to
- Fri. Oct. 11, 2024 08:55:11 PM
now begins the regression to mean when the talented child sees it isn’t enough
- Fri. Oct. 11, 2024 07:30:39 PM
I had a sleeping dream that i went to a very traditional style church service with the father of one of my kids’s friends from school. Then I had a waking dream that I was in the school hallway and a teacher jerked their head to the side in a signal for me to get up against the wall.
- Fri. Oct. 11, 2024 07:10:28 PM
there are folks in iowa who pronounce the SE iowa town Ottumwa, “autumn-wah.” which is wrong, of course.
- Fri. Oct. 11, 2024 06:45:45 PM