Sometimes when I’m working a little late, my boy calls me at the office . . .

Continue reading Working Late

Things to Say Afterwards

“I really needed that!”

When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in confederacy against him.

— Jonathan Swift

I’m reading a great, very funny book called A Confederacy of Dunces, written by John Kennedy Toole in 1963. Unfortunately, Toole could not find anyone willing to publish the book and subsequently killed himself in 1969 at the age of 31.

Continue reading What I’m Reading

We lost our dog the other morning. My wife thought the boy was watching him and he thought she was watching him . . . it turns out no one was watching him, so he ran out the front door and disappeared.

Continue reading Lost and Found

That Wegman guy who dresses up the Weimaraners . . .

I saw him on a TV commercial this morning. Enough already! Let’s move on!

Dressing up a Weimaraner once is kind of funny, but if you’re going to spend your whole life doing it, somebody really needs to kick your ass.

The same goes for Anne Geddes . . .

Abandoned buildings give me a weird feeling. Where are the people? Where’d they go?

• Dark Passage
• Modern Ruins Photographic Essays
• New England Ruins

Continue reading Abandoned

Here’s one of the weirdest ideas I’ve heard today . . .

Cinespia is screening the film Detour at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery:

Bring blankets, picnic dinner and cocktails for this special screening below and above the stars.

Continue reading Below and Above the Stars

According to a survey commissioned by the Gospel Music Association, only 10 percent of born-again teens believe that copying CDs for friends and unauthorized music downloading are morally wrong . . .

Racial Gaps

On average, black students who graduate from high school are equipped with the skills the average white student mastered by the eighth grade, according to federal tests.

— “Equal access to schools fails to equalize education,” USA Today

Blah blah blah . . .

Continue reading HW Solves Two of the Thorniest Problems in American Education

I got an email today with the subject line

i’ve had eonugh of your bluslhit

This should be great!, I thought. I don’t know what I’ve done, but some illiterate has had enough of it and is now going to settle my hash!

Imagine my disappointment when it turned out to be just another ad for online pharmaceuticals . . .

I’m brushing my teeth in the bathroom when the dog, as he often does, runs in, jumps up, pulls the bath towels off the rack and starts shaking them around. It doesn’t do any real damage, but of course someone has to re-rack the towels.

My son, who’s decided this morning that it will be funny to walk around shouting at everyone, walks in, surveys the damage and shouts at me, “Who let him do this? You?”

Continue reading Raising Kids and Dogs