Blowing & Drifting

Genevieve: “Know what my favorite population is?” Me: “Population? Uh, no.” G: “Seventeen thousand.” Julia: “Daddy, did you know that if you’re a human, you have thousands of ancestors who were cavemen?” Me: “Sure. You do, too.” J: “What? That’s crazy! I wonder if they looked like me…”

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Friday afternoon, I rode home through the Arb, which wasn’t unpleasant:

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Yesterday, Shannon passed a pretty cool milestone for her book, and wrote it up in her usual, wonderful way. As her biggest fan, I say, “Congratulations!” and ask, “Is it time to crack that bottle of Champagne yet?” Wondrous Life Yesterday I saw my book, The Essential Stay-at-Home Mom Manual: How to Have a Wondrous [...]

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With the opening of Carleton’s new Weitz Center for Creativity, the College gained several great new spaces for the display of art and other visual materials. The crown jewel is the Perlman Teaching Museum, which is right inside the front door of the Weitz Center and which has two excellent inaugural shows running right now. [...]

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The girls were VERY EXCITED about Halloween – Vivi way more than Julia, but still. They had a blast on Friday at the Halloween parties at school, and we had fun on Saturday carving pumpkins fun on Sunday at Carleton’s big Halloween carnival (despite this “I won’t smile for you” portrait) and fun today trick-or-treating – [...]

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I spent pretty much all of Friday serving as a handler – like the security agents who keep tabs on journalists in North Korea, only with less authority. Rather than preventing the subversion of the state, my job entailed managing the campus visit of two staffers from a foundation to which we had recently submitted a [...]

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Wednesday, I took the day off to do a long gravel ride, my first substantial bike outing after the Almanzo way back in May. I had initially intended to do an all-day century, but then I decided that my legs probably couldn’t handle a hundred miles of gravel cycling. Luckily, the guys down at my [...]

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Who’s with me? Meet at the corner of Spring Creek Road and Wall Street Road, and we’ll storm some turkey farms, or knock golfers off their carts, or something.

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Yesterday, Carleton dedicated its second wind turbine, a gift from two alums that will significantly cut the College’s energy costs and reduce its carbon footprint. In true Carleton fashion, the dedication ceremony was neither too formal nor too casual – a low-key gathering at the turbine (a mile or so east of campus); some remarks [...]

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I’m not much into the girls’ milestones. I mean, I pay attention to them and mark them as significant, but I don’t get choked up about first steps, going to kindergarten, or whatever. I figure that they’re growing up whether I like it or not, and that it’s not worth getting too sentimental about that [...]

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Today, we took our annual trip to Red Wing, a great little river town about 45 minutes east of Northfield. We had a blast there last year, and expected the same this time around. Trouble is, the geniuses in charge forgot to check if any of the good reasons for going to Red Wing – [...]

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At 9:00 a.m. today, I started the Big Woods Run half-marathon, the longest running race I’ve done to date. I trained pretty hard for the race, and that training paid off in a good effort that wound up being a few minutes behind my target. But I had a lot of fun, and certainly feel [...]

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Before your children actually acquire verbal skills, you should develop and memorize answers to the following questions, which your child will ask you roughly a hundred times a day between the ages of 3 and 7 (or later): What’s your favorite color? What’s your favorite animal? What’s your favorite fish/reptile/amphibian/snake/bird/cat/dog/et cetera? What’s your favorite kind [...]

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Wednesday night, I was browsing my Facebook feed on my iPhone when I saw a friend’s update: oh no. Steve Jobs. I was pretty sure I knew what that post meant, but I swiped and clicked over to the New York Times website, where the headline confirmed that Steve Jobs had died that afternoon. I [...]

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I’ve been training pretty seriously since July for the Big Woods Run half marathon on October 15 – “seriously” meaning that I’ve been getting coaching advice from an Internet friend who’s a pretty fast runner/cyclist/triathlete. The regimen she’s worked out for me has been pretty tough – some two-a-day workouts, long runs that are longer [...]

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