Life

Grippen Hill And Beyond

November 19, 2006

I enjoy taking long bicycle rides. But I very rarely take them because the responsibilities of life get in the way. It is a frivolity of time that I can’t justify and so rarely indulge. Usually once a year (I wish it were more) I find myself on my bike heading to parts unknown. Since [...]

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The Next Great Adventure

October 15, 2006

Life can change suddenly. Sometimes, it does. On September 24th mine did. My grandfather has Alzheimer’s. Grandpa P was only officially diagnosed within the past year, but certainly has been suffering with the early effects of the disease for much longer. Within the past year or so the disease has finally advanced to the point [...]

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Our Reforming Toilet

September 5, 2006

Our toilet reformed. To properly appreciate this news, you must read the previous post here. Have you read that entry? Okay, good. Now you know exactly how vile, how utterly evil, our toilet is (or was). A perfectly new toilet that failed to function properly and now for several years has failed to function properly. [...]

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Pringles?

August 19, 2006

Twice this summer I have house-sat (or, more precisely, dog-sat) for my uncle. His family doesn’t like sending their dogs to the kennel when they go on vacation and it is a way for me to earn a bit of money. People who hear of this say, “Oh, so you get a vacation too” but [...]

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Summer Things

August 9, 2006

Last Friday was the opening day for a local festival. I am the sort of person who normally spends his time huddled in a dark corner whispering to himself and staring at the flickering light of his monitor. As far as social interaction, you could shovel a meal under the door and I’d pretty much [...]

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Preferences in Futility

August 4, 2006

We all have our preferences in futility. I have at various times made different forms of this observation, but today it struck me again as I watched my Mom weed her flower garden. I wouldn’t do that, I thought. It wasn’t because I thought weeding was too hard–weeding is easy. It wasn’t because I hate [...]

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Flood Cleanup

July 30, 2006

Prologue: The Flooding of Other Places Everyone knows about Hurricane Katrina. The devastation that storm wrought remains etched in national memory. Disasters of such scale capture our attention, but it is easy to forget that not only New Orleans suffered from Hurricane Katrina, or that many people suffer elsewhere at other times from flooding. The [...]

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A Call From The Past

May 21, 2006

Back in my childhood my family spent a few years living in a small town trailer park. Every week Mom, with little kids in tow, would troop down to the local library. It was a small town with a small library which was really a converted house. Small as it was to an adult, to [...]

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Three Observations

April 29, 2006

Unrelated observations: 1. Why do all modern hand pumps have plastic nozzle heads? In the good old days the nozzle was metal and fit easily on the valve stem. The modern plastic versions go on the tire valve steam with difficulty, and they are more prone to malfunction, or not working at all. The genius [...]

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Riches and Fame are Mine . . .

April 24, 2006

I am a man who enjoys irony, and the absurd. I’ve been laughing at myself a lot recently. Have you ever imagined the least likely thing that could happen to you, and then it came true? What about something so beyond your imagining that you couldn’t even dream of it happening? I’m not talking about [...]

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