The Agonies of Digital Media
For those of you with not a bit of digital data in any form, I envy you. You must be out there, somewhere, perhaps as part of some primitive tribe living deep within an impenetrable jungle, though no doubt even now the barons of our digital age are plotting ways to get you, and your children, posting selfies on Facebook and Twitter. A smartphone helicopter drop, perhaps? (more…)
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On the Leacock Trail
Hiking the Leacock Trail this morning, I found myself contemplating the viability and/or wisdom of selectively removing unpleasant memories from our minds. This is apparently a new avenue of research in the various behavioral sciences, as a possible means of cutting-edge treatment for people suffering from things like PTSD (more…)
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Skiing’s Man-Made Future
As I contemplate the reality of what appears to be the worst Sierra winter any of us have ever seen, I find myself thinking about the obvious importance snowmaking is going to have for the survival of many ski areas. We’re back from a week in Flagstaff, skiing the Arizona Snowbowl, which has recently installed (after endless legal battles) a working snowmaking system (more…)
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Blind to the Bishop
Over the years I’ve become increasingly fascinated with the discrepancy between Reality and my perception of it. If you’ve never contemplated this divide, discovering it is like finding a bottomless rabbit hole—unsettling, to say the least. If you’re dead certain that the heater is gray, for example, or if you like to leave yourself notes, watch out (more…)
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The Sun Rises…
Over a world both familiar and strange.
Los Angeles, California, December 15, 2012.
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The Invisible Note
I’ve been dutifully changing diapers for a long, long time, but also of course working towards getting my kids out of diapers, and though I think I can at last declare success, I can also safely say I won’t be writing any how-to-potty-train books. My last, desperate potty training tactic, after I gave up on everything else, was to simply use Behavioral Psychology methods to try to de-anxiefy the whole process (more…)
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My Halloween Visitor
It’s not the Giant Spider hanging outside my window yesterday which makes me nervous. It’s the Giant Spider which was hanging outside my window yesterday but which today has gone conspicuously missing which makes me nervous. Where did he go??? Happy Halloween everyone!
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Chicago
Sometime in the 1970′s my family packed all their belongings into a used station wagon and drove from Chicago to Flagstaff. One of my earliest and most iconic memories is the sight of the Sears Tower receding in the distance though our rear windshield, vanishing along with good friends and family as we left the only world I knew for a completely unknown future in the west (more…)
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Resolutions
Somewhere in my twenties I realized I would never be able to repay all that my dad had given me. I don’t just mean money; I mean all the ways he was there for my brother and me. I talked about that with my dad one day, and he told me his philosophy on the matter: he expected me to repay him by giving no less than the same effort to my own (future) children (more…)
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A (Virtual) White Christmas
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and your family from ours!
