Blowing & Drifting

Our garage gets ridiculously filthy over the winter – even a mild, no-salt-and-sand-on-the-streets winter like the one that just ended. With practically balmy weather this weekend, I had no excuse not to tidy up and clean out the garage, so I did. The process didn’t take long (it’s not a big garage, nor an impossibly [...]

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I took the afternoon off today so that Shannon could go to the beauty parlor salon and catch up with a friend. Julia spent most of that time at a playdate, so Vivi and I had to amuse ourselves. She played on my iPad while I worked out, we built a giant Duplo castle, and [...]

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Shannon took the girls to a low-key magic show at the library this afternoon, an event put on by Tim Freeland, the town’s only radio impresario/magician. As so often happens, this inspired Genevieve to try her own “magic tricks” when I came home. Specifically, she tried to replicate the magician’s success at guessing the number [...]

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Today I left work early to ride for a couple hours. Conditions were pretty much perfect, so the outing promised to be great. I was surprised by just how great I felt, though. I did a simple out-and-back 30-mile course (flat in the first and last thirds, fairly hilly in the middle) in a hair [...]

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This is what happens when you let your kindergartner loose with a camera:

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I brought this book home from the library for Julia before Christmas, when she was obsessively rereading Charlotte’s Web. She wouldn’t even open the darn thing. Then earlier this week, the book showed up on our coffee tabl bearing the barcode of her school library and bookmarked at a spot that suggested she’d read most [...]

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Thanks to an jesting link from a Facebook friend, my girls heard Malvina Reynolds’ “Little Boxes” the other day, via a YouTube clip of the opening to the TV show Weeds. Unbelievably, they love the song – Reynolds’ unique voice and delivery, the funny lyrics, even the message. We listened to it about ten times [...]

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I’d be remiss in being the husband of a famous author if I didn’t point out that Shannon is going to be reading from her new book (The Essential Stay-at-Home Mom Manual: How to Have a Wondrous Life Amidst Kids and Chaos) at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, February 15, at Monkey See Monkey Read in [...]

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I decided on a whim to try and take a picture each day of 2012. Here’s the slideshow on Flickr that includes all the shots so far.

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Today, I was supposed to compete in the first of two ski races this winter, the 26k classic race at the City of Lakes Loppet in Minneapolis. I was scheduled to ski the 42k classic race at the Mora Vasaloppet next weekend. When I registered for these races last summer, I was very, very excited [...]

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I recently started reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. So far, I’m not finding it to be profound, but it is full of interesting stories and quite a bit of insight into why Jobs became the man he was when he died. I was particularly struck by this anecdote, from the early 1980s as [...]

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I’m not sure why, but I pretty much stopped blogging late last year, and only posted one or two things during January. The first of February strikes me as a good moment to get back to blogging, which I (usually) enjoy a lot. To get things rolling again, I thought I’d post something that I [...]

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Today I read an incredible essay by Meghan Daum in The Believer – “Haterade.” Equal parts autobiography and social commentary, the article analyzes hater culture on the internet – horrible comment boards on news websites or blogs, vitriolic email criticisms to authors, and so forth. Maybe I’m naive, but I was shocked by some of [...]

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Late last year, I was flabbergasted to discover that one of the cool little shoes-and-clothes shops in our fair city was carrying kromer hats, which are the the de facto official cap of the Upper Peninsula. I had many a kromer when I was growing up, all purchased from the company in Ironwood that’s been [...]

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I am ridiculously lucky to be able to take a lot of time off this holiday season, including all of the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Before Christmas, Shannon and I decided to make the most of this time by doing fun stuff with the girls each day. Early this afternoon, we headed over [...]

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