Blowing & Drifting

Last week I fully joined the standing-desk trend. I had bought a tall “cafe table” for my office a couple years ago, and intermittently used it as a desk, but last Tuesday I finally moved my computer to that table. A week into the experiment, I’m ready to say that it’s been a great arrangement. [...]

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Musing about possible April Fool’s pranks, Julia asked me how hard it would be to rig a bucket of water to fall on someone’s head. Thankfully, she and Vivi went in another, tamer, drier direction. (The dress color and the last line in the description are the jokes.)

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Vivi wrote this newspaper while I was traveling earlier this week. Click on it to see a more legible version. It’s worth the time:

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When I was racing the other weekend, Shannon set the girls up with a dish-soap painting project. Here are two of the paintings they made, each with a mysterious title. When I asked them about the titles, they said almost in unison that I’d told them that artists sometimes gave their works strange names, so [...]

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Though I’m not quite sure what I’m getting myself into, I am doing this race on Saturday morning. I am severely undertrained, but adrenaline should compensate for at least 10% of my fitness shortfall. I hope my beard can make up the rest. If nothing else, I’ll have some painful fun on the Beast!

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I saw this graphic a bunch of times last week, when the snowpocalypse was about to crush the East Coast. I appreciate the information, and I know that falling on the ice is no effing joke, but at the same time I despair for a society that’s so divorced from nature that we need infographics to [...]

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Feeling a little unprepared for a fatbike race I’m planning to do on Saturday, I spent quite a bit of time on the Beast this last weekend – trying my winter gear, testing my legs, figuring out riding positions, feeling the wintry mix on my face, learning the best way to fly off my bike [...]

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Genevieve spends a lot of time talking about “Genevieve Land,” where the natives naturally speak “Genevieve Language.” Luckily for those of us who might have to travel to this locale, she’s started a lexicon with important entries like Mama, sweets, vegetables, and birthday:

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Today is Shannon’s forty-xth birthday. As chief birthday officer, I’m glad to report that everything went well. The gifts were well chosen and well received, and the girls and I acquitted ourselves well in the kitchen, making a workmanlike dinner of bacon grilled cheeses and apple-celery salad and – get *this*! – a chocolate cake. [...]

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At about 7:15, Vivi decided that she wanted to read in bed under the covers with a headlamp she’s appropriated from me. We headed into her room, where Julia decided to join in the fun (in her own bed). Everything went fine until it was time for actual lights out at 7:30. Vivi started crying [...]

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From a great collection of posters illustrating stupid reactions to designers’ work, my new personal motto:

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By 1995, I had followed the Tour de France semi-seriously – or about as seriously as you could from rural Michigan before the Internet – for about a decade, going back to 1986, when Greg LeMond won the first of his three Tour titles and established the United States as a force in international cycling. [...]

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After breakfast today, Julia asked me, “Do you know how long it takes light from the sun to reach the earth?” I said no, slightly ashamed that I didn’t. “Well, guess!” she told me. “Uhh, one minute.” “No, more. It’s a surprisingly long time.” “An hour!” “Way less.” “Fifteen minutes.” “Close!” “Uhhh, seven and a [...]

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The only thing better than a giant snowbank is a giant snowbank with tunnels in it, and the only thing better than that is a snowbank tunnel from which emerges a smiling first grader!

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The seven and a half hours of 2013 have been pretty good. I stayed up till just after midnight, drinking a good beer and chatting with good friends who unfortunately live far away. I slept till seven, when Vivi climbed into my bed to snuggle and then told me several funny jokes. Now I’m having [...]

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