These are the books I read in 2012, roughly in the order listed. The ratings are mine. They don’t represent a consensus of opinion. Book of the Year: Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin My Library at LibraryThing Read more →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
The Honest Politician
“You want a simple plan to reduce the national unemployment rate? GET A JOB!” Read more →
Are Daily Stand-Ups Harming Your Team?
Woody Zuill: Are Daily Stand-Ups Harming Your Team? Read more →
Tax Rate Hike and Increased Unemployment Payments on the Same Day
According to this White House press release, the federal government is ringing in the new year by simultaneously raising tax rates (i.e., penalizing people for working) and extending payments to two million people who do not work (i.e., rewarding people for playing Xbox). Has this ever happened before at any time in the history of the U.S. (or anywhere else in the world for that matter)? — Philip Greenspun Read more →
Newport Harbor Lights
We took a boat tour of Newport Harbor last week to see Christmas lights on the bayfront homes and yachts. Current and former owners of these fabulous abodes include Nicolas Cage, Michelle Pfeiffer, Richie Sambora, Peter Falk, Mark McGwire, the William Wrigley family, the Snyder family (founders of In-N-Out Burger), the FaBrizio family (founders of Simple Green), Shirley Temple, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, John Wayne, Charles Bronson, Charles Schulz, George Argyros, and local luminaries like Fletcher Jones Jr and the Segerstrom family (owners of South Coast Plaza). In the early 20th century, lots in Newport Harbor were selling for $75. Amenities such as electricity, paved streets, sewers, streetlights and water were lacking and roads to the area were largely undeveloped. Basically, you were buying the right to live on a mud flat at a three-hour drive from civilization, so even at $75, sales were… Read more →
Aside
I Think We Can Speed Up the Drive to Vegas
The I-15 to Las Vegas is mostly two lanes of traffic in either direction. This could work out okay if slower drivers stayed in the right lane but they don’t. You’ve got people driving at or below the speed limit in the left lane, which creates a blockade and jacks up the travel time. In Paul Epps’s America, the area between Barstow and Vegas would be patrolled by military-style helicopters and any vehicle being passed on the right would be taken out by a well-placed missile. “Wouldn’t that make things even slower?” my son asks. “Initially, it might. But think about the deterrent effect. I think you’d find that in a very short time, slower drivers would stay in the right-hand lane where they belong. Good question though. You ask a lot of great questions.” Read more →
What Happened in Vegas: Hollywood Theater
We spent a few days in Las Vegas over the holidays. Of course what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas but I will go so far as to say that we saw a magic show at the MGM Grand Hollywood Theater featuring a performer whose name — I will say this much — is the same as a Charles Dickens character. I expected him to be self-absorbed and boring but he was actually unassuming and funny. Good show. The Hollywood Theater will sell you a tropical drink, like a daiquiri or a pina colada, in one of these silver chalices for $19 and you can take it home with you. Non-alcoholic drinks are also available and with the non-alcoholic drinks, they throw in a package of M&Ms or a bag of kettle chips. Alcohol or M&Ms, take your pick. I love my chalice. I have it at home with me… Read more →
What Happens in Vegas
An alleged fight between two female blackjack dealers at the Bellagio hotel-casino in Las Vegas sent one of the women to the hospital and the other to jail. It was the second violent incident inside a Las Vegas Strip casino in recent days. Last week, an Illinois man shot and killed his ex-girlfriend and then himself in the lobby of the Excalibur resort. The woman was an employee of the resort. — Report: Female Las Vegas blackjack dealer stabs another – NBCNews.com Hasn’t NBC News heard of the “What happens in Vegas . . .” code? Read more →
The Season’s Upon Us
There’s bells and there’s holly, the kids are gung-ho True love finds a kiss beneath fresh mistletoe Some families are messed up while others are fine If you think yours is crazy, well you should see mine — “The Season’s Upon Us,” Dropkick Murphys Read more →
HTML5 Date Tag
I learned something interesting about the HTML5 date tag. Look at this calendar dropdown: Here is the sum total of code needed to make that happen in a Chrome browser: That’s it! No Javascript, no CSS. Programmers these days have it easy. Read more →
Likes and Dislikes
Dislike: Restrooms where the freshening agent smells worse than urine . . . Read more →
I Have Kids Older Than NBA Players
My boy, a college sophomore, and I are watching the Lakers play the Charlotte Bobcats on the TV . . . “Did you know,” he says, “that I’m a full two months older than [Bobcats forward] Michael Kidd-Gilchrist?” “Hmmm . . . really?” “He grew more than me.” Kidd-Gilchrist is 6’7″, 232 lbs. He turned 19 in September. Read more →
Grown-Up Kids
It used to puzzle me how parents could stand to live at a distance from their adult children. Now I think it’s because it’s a bit embarrassing to have your kids see how absurdly vacant your life has become now that your parenting days are over. A lot of species, once they get too old to have and raise offspring, they just die. They don’t hang around forever and make everyone uncomfortable. Maybe a little distance isn’t such a bad thing. Read more →
Pug with Santa
Aside
Aaron Hurst: 11 Secrets to Building a Game-Changing Organization
What’s on Your Nightstand?
Lamp Clock radio Extra pair of reading glasses Business cards, mostly my own 1 pen, 2 pencils Post-Its Vaccination record Schedule of classes for LA Fitness Two or three dollars in change Nine dollars in Candian coins 440 Indian rupees Read more →
Lightly Chewed
I was browsing the online inventory for a used bookstore and found this listing: Gewirtz, Elaine Waldorf Pugs for Dummies Wiley Publishing 2004 Soft Cover. light shelf wear; light yellowing; bottom corner of book (at spine) lightly chewed; Read more →
It’s Not Just the Guns
Within a week or so, we’ve had Jovan Belcher, the mall shooting in Oregon and 26 people killed at a school in Connecticut. I’m hearing that maybe we should do something about guns. But we’ve always had guns. Since the country was founded July 4, 1776, Americans have had guns, and for most of that time, we’ve managed to live with each other without a mass murder a week. It can’t be just the guns. One of the most appalling things to me about modern American society is the way increasingly graphic violence is peddled as entertainment. Turn on the TV: mass murder is entertainment. Grotesque, violent death is “great television.” Serial killers in movies are the heroes. They can’t be killed off because they’ve got to come back and kill more people in the next sequel. I know John Wayne used to kill people in movies, but when the… Read more →