Category: Miscellaneous

I play the lottery once in a blue moon – usually only when the prize gets to about $50,000,000. I figure if I’m going to waste a dollar on something this foolish, it ought to be for something big – something I can REALLY retire on in style without any regard for frugality. It seems that a lot of Powerball players are of the same mindset, and in reaction, Powerball is changing the rules.

Since we were already out late for a party, Laura and I decided to brave the crowds for our midnight copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.  First, we drove past Barnes & Noble.  It was an absolute zoo, with people parking anywhere and everywhere.  Following the same path I had taken a couple … Read More “Harry Potter and the Orgy of Consumerism” »

Don’t adjust your calendars. It is Thursday, July 14, and that is a picture of me standing with a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, two days before its official release. We had received several copies for our schools.

Don’t worry – I was a good boy and put it back in our vault without peeking. I’ll buy my copy on Saturday with the teaming throngs.

I’ve stumbled across this word at least three times in the last week – once in Umberto Eco’s “The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana”, once in reference to the London bombings, and once in some report on NPR. It’s an interesting word, and now that I’ve heard it several times, and now written about it, I’m sure it will become part of my permanent vocabulary.

I saw this sign on the way to one of my schools this afternoon. Kind of makes you wonder what goes on at that church.

I’ve been so busy getting this website converted that I seem to have bypassed the July 4th holiday. We did our usual routine – charred dead cow at my place with pyrotechnics at my sister’s. Despite the routine, this year seemed unusual for several reasons, some of them personal, some just weird observations, and some of them political.

The site continues to evolve. I think I’ve settled on a theme that looks good and still accommodates everything I want on the site. I’m using FastTrack by Sadish Balasubramanian, so the website is going to look like thousands of others that use this theme. I like it because it’s easily customized, and it doesn’t … Read More “Constantly Evolving” »

The “Malling of America” is a catchphrase used by several authors in recent history, including Andy Serwer of Fortune, Barbara Berenstein of PBS, and William Severini Kowinski.  Most of these works (many now nearly a decade old) cite the decline of Main Street USA in favor of malls.  In an a reversal, at least in … Read More “Get Malled” »

..and what a week it has been.  In the course of seven days I have entertained my brother at my house, gone to see Michael Frayn’s “Copenhagen”, kayaked the Green River, and lost miserably at bowling – all this while battling a cold and fever.  I had all these wonderfully pithy entries I was going to … Read More “Welcome to the Working Week” »

Interesting dinner conversations.  Tonight at Mister Ups, we watched as two women meticulously split up their dinner bill.  Last night at Amigos, Laura had mentioned that another group of women took an inordinate amount of time figuring out and paying for their meal.  This, in turn, reminded me of a conversation that I had when … Read More “OK. So Who Gets the Bill?” »