The Attraction Game Today I got an unexpected call from my friend Travis. Travis is a wonderful guy I met about seven years ago. He is a guy who always has a bright smile and easy laugh. He is a guy who I would always choose to have a meal with because he is simply an interesting guy. He lives in Croton-on-Hudson with his Kiwi wife Fiona and his two boys, Connor and Jack. They…
He Was Right Over the last week Donald Trump has held an array of rallies where he has said many outrageous and untrue things. We as a country are unfortunately becoming immune to his rantings and have come to expect little or no truth in his words. I don’t actually think most Trump voters think his words are truthful, but rather they just enjoy his brashness and unconventional handling of every situation regardless of the…
Wakey-Wakey One of my favorite movies is The World’s Fastest Indian, starring Anthony Hopkins. The obvious reason for my affection is that the subject is motorcycle speed racing on the Bonneville Salt Flats of Western Utah. Any movie about motorcycling is of interest to me, but this one holds a particularly special place in my heart. It is about an old New Zealand codger named Burt Monro from Invercargill on the South Island, who spends…
Workaholistic Repose Fixation on retirement seems to take three forms from my observation. The first is the most obvious that people who are looking forward to retiring are usually very fixated on the financial preparation for the blessed event and all the lifestyle issues associated therewith. Finding that perfect spot with the right weather to suit your temperament and presumably the right pace and proximity to civilization to fit your expectations of how you will…
Time Warping The folks at 23andMe always like to surprise me about what they can give me for value added from one little swab of spit taken from me several years ago (probably three or four years). They are regularly using my chromosomal blueprint to cross-reference me to new and distant members of my family that I have little or no interest in connect with. But they also like to make observations about my lifestyle…
Teaching in the Modern World In my backyard at my Ithaca house, the house I call Homeward Bound because it adjoins the Cornell University campus where my mother, all of my children and I all attended, there sits a wonderful rock and copper life-sized statue of a reclining Socrates, decked out in full toga, teaching his students most emphatically with hand gestures and such. This always struck me as the epitome of the Socratic Method…
Zoomsday When I was preparing to move out here to San Diego, I wondered a lot about what I would be doing to fill my days. I was technically coming out here with a job, but it was a deferred salary job that may or may not have lasted very long. I had been retained by one client for expert witness services through the team with which I had enlisted, but had no idea whether…
Frazzled On Wednesday I think I pushed Handy Brad too far. He had worked through the weekend to get necessary things done in the garage. This included painting the walls now that the epoxy floor was in and, as a last-minute, but logical, addition to the to do list, the laying of industrial rubber baseboards to finish off the intersection of new floor and newly painted walls. I must admit, what started as a practical…
August Doldrums I just sat at my desk and realized that my New Yorker calendar was still showing June. How did that happen? Well, I guess that means I’ve had a busy summer and while it has involved a lot of work of many types, it has mostly just sort of slid by without me formally sitting at my desk and keeping things refreshed, like my calendar. Today is Thursday and that means trash…
Teaching the Unteachable I am getting that prickly feeling after six months of planning to teach a course in late September. I am six weeks away from the first lecture, but I have been through this drill and I know how many hours of preparation is required for each scheduled hour of lecture. Experienced professors will tell you they can get it down to 4-5 hours of preparation. When I started teaching in 2007 at…