Our ten-year-old son, Optimist Prime, doesn’t get near as many mentions as The Fonz because he’s probably the most polite, positive person I know and rarely does me the favor of getting in trouble to provide material for this blog. This week a teacher told my wife he had approached Optimist Prime and told him, […]
January 13, 2012
In another slow news day, major media outlets are reporting on the plight of a Colorado high school girl whose senior picture was deemed too racy for the yearbook. After being told her picture was rejected for being inappropriate, she was allowed to submit a second picture which was also rejected. The girl and her […]
January 12, 2012
If you’re anything like me, you took the week off work to digest news of Beyonce and Jay-Z’s new baby. Most of my digestion time was spent trying to remember why Jay-Z was important. My friend Andrew says he’s a rapper. If that’s true I must confess I couldn’t name a single Jay-Z song. Not […]
January 9, 2012
About once a week my wife and I discuss the case of the missing Tupperware. Some people can never find their socks and blame the dryer. Some people can never find a wooden stake when a vampire comes knocking. Some people can never find their medication, because I’ve hidden it. My wife and I can […]
January 6, 2012
We’ve had a wonderful trip these last three weeks. I skiied in South Korea, and in Bali I hiked, surfed, and waterslid at Bali’s WaterBom waterpark on Christmas Day. We didn’t bring cell phones and were delighted to never know what time it was, which sounds nice in theory but may have accounted for why […]
January 4, 2012
I’m sitting in a cafe in the tropical mountains of Ubud, a small arts village an hour’s drive from the main tourist beaches of Bali. As my family spent the last five days visiting local artiststudios and hiking the hills traversing the rice paddies and lush valleys, we’ve encountered so many friendly villagers who seem […]
January 2, 2012
I’m hoping to make 2012 even better than 2011 so here’s a list of my New Year’s resolutions to make that happen: They say an apple a day keeps the doctor away. I can’t remember to eat an apple every day, but I do think I could remember to eat seven apples every Monday. Write […]
December 31, 2011
It’s been a great year and I’m going to hate to see it go. I appeared in three plays: Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night; A Minor Case of Murder which I also wrote and co-directed; and Drift which we took to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. My wife considered all three plays to be successes because none of […]
December 28, 2011
“What is it about being on holiday that makes me always want to be on holiday?” –Mrs. Good Greatsby Every time we go on vacation I relearn the lesson that no matter how expensive the hotel, how beautiful the scenery, or how fascinating the culture, the best part of the kids’ vacation will be the […]
December 26, 2011
My family and I are enjoying our vacation in sunny and sometimes rainy Bali, Indonesia. My ten-year-old, Optimist Prime, appeared to be having too much fun in the swimming pool and I decided to give his day some structure by interviewing him. Dad: Welcome to my office. Sit anywhere you like. OP: There’s only one […]
December 23, 2011
I remember being taught the metric system as a young kid in school and sharing the annoyance of my classmates when we were told the state education board had mandated the teaching of the metric system–even though anybody with any sense knew the US system was better. America was on the verge of winning the Cold […]
January 14, 2012
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