How to turn your iPhone into a Ping Pong paddle for the weirdest game of Ping Pong ever …
via youtube.com I dunno. This video doesn’t exactly sell the concept. I especially like where they recommend you “hold on tight” to the phone.
The Sun Also Rises
When getting ready for a yard sale a few weeks ago, I stumbled onto a box of books I read for classes in high school and college. In it was my copy of The Sun Also Rises from junior-year of high school. I decided it was worth checking out again and it turns out it was a pretty good book. Part of the problem of reading books like that in high school English classes is that you just don't pick up on everything you should. I don't meet metaphor, allusions, and allegory so much–that's what we were being trained to Read more…
Your Oldie for the Day
The singer's message to the woman who lives below him is about one step above "check this box if you like me." Really? That's the best you can do, Mr. Romantic? Still. A catchy number. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emvVDC1-bwI?wmode=transparent]
Social Media as Performance
Here are two interrelated stories worth sharing. The first, in The New York Times, suggests that broadcasting our most mundane details is preventing us from being in the moment. We think, "I should totally tweet what I'm doing right now." Here's the start of it. On a recent lazy Saturday morning, my daughter and I lolled on a blanket in our front yard, snacking on apricots, listening to a download of E. B. White reading “The Trumpet of the Swan.” Her legs sprawled across mine; the grass tickled our ankles. It was the quintessential summer moment, and a year ago, I Read more…
I just realized I’ve been at @cityclubtacoma for just over a year! Man, time flies.
It took the first Monday of August for me to realize I've been on the job with City Club more than a year now. Last year at this time, we were two days away from an outing to the LeMay Car Museum at the old military academy on Pacific. This year, I'm just a day away from our fundraiser gala at Lakewold. There's been a lot of great things in this last year. Interesting programs, sometimes controversially so. I'm also very happy with Tacoma Art Museum as our lunch venue (pitch for TAM: you should definitely consider having an event Read more…
Quiet Weekend
We spent a long weekend at Mason Lake, catching up on reading and perfecting the fine art of doing nothing. Mary beat me at Spite and Malice (a good card game). We watched a DVD or two. And I wrote a couple chapters in the novel I'm working on. The weather wasn't all it could have been for the last weekend of July and the first weekend of August, but even with some cloudy skies, the lake isn't a bad place to while away the time. After that we met up with my friend Deborah from The Netherlands in Seattle Read more…
Your Golden Oldie for the day
That Ricky Nelson was a rake. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0janfcZ8LUw?wmode=transparent]
Thomas Jefferson and the stain of slavery
My opinion of Jefferson has changed dramatically since I started this reading project. I have read a lot of Jefferson's work, and read a lot about him. But one of the big questions about his character goes something like this: "How is it that the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence had slaves?" I've often encountered that question, but the Alexander Hamilton biography made me go much deeper than that. Here's why. Economic hypocrisy In order to create the US, the evil of slavery had to be overlooked. It was swept under the rug and as far as politics Read more…
Alexander Hamilton
My Presidential reading list took a detour with the inclusion of Alexander Hamilton. After several of the biographies (Adams and Washington especially), it became clear that Hamilton and Ben Franklin were incredible forces in their own right and deserved to be included with my reading list. But the Hamilton Biography was so long. Ron Chernow wrote a 700-some-odd page book about a man whose never saw 50. It was good, quite good at times. But long. I started in April, I think, and just finished this weekend (there were, of course, plenty of other books in there as well). So. Read more…
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