After eight years of living together, Erik decided we should marry. I didn’t want to, but I did. During that ninth year it all fell apart. It shows. Never try to hold on to anything. — Martha Graham Read more →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
Mike Webster
Former Steeler Webster dies at age 50 — ESPN.com This is a sad story. Mike Webster’s football career brought him nine Pro Bowl appearances, four Super Bowl victories, a Hall of Fame induction, and irreversible brain damage, which in turn led to memory loss, depression and homelessness. He was living in Pittsburgh with his high-school age son, who last week told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: My dad has some health problems no one knows about and that I don’t want to get into that much. But he has some brain injuries from football. I have to take care of my dad. Read more →
:-)
Research indicates that today is the 20th anniversary of the smiley 🙂 Read more →
Does an Elite College Really Pay?
This article concludes that the answer is no — that if you’re smart enough to get into, say, Princeton, you’re smart enough to make money wherever you go to school, even if it’s someplace a lot less expensive. Not to say that I wouldn’t be thrilled to have my kid get into an Ivy League school, but I’ve always thought that it’s no great feat to graduate “the best and the brightest” if you only admit the best and the brightest to begin with. Read more →
Baby Talk
One of my wife’s friends in Thailand has been trying for years to have a baby and finally did. Her typing and English are not so good, but her email I thought was quite affecting: My girl, JOOK-KRU,is so young, so I want to spend most time for her. I had a little trouble in first 5 months pregnancy. Now I feel very good, I think big trouble in my life was gone. As you know We see docter for 8 years continuiously and spend a lot of money for the problom. We get her by IVF technique. She is healty , try to climb to upatairs, always make loud noise. I think she can call ‘ mae’ or ‘mama’ or ‘papa’ soon. “Mae” means “Mom” in the Thai language. “Jook-Kru” means “little bird.” Read more →
Healing Power
“Healing power of sports” nonsense thoughtfully refuted: If, in the long run, you need sports to help you through a time of tragedy and to take your mind off a grimmer reality, then you are emotionally in so much trouble in not understanding what is real and what is fantasy that the prospects for your long-term emotional health are probably not very good. Read more →
1st Day of 4th Grade
We have Mr. Walker for 4th grade this year . . . I saw an article today: Do Kids Need MP3 Players for School? It seems obvious to me that they don’t, and why even bring it up, although a pair of my kid’s back-to-school pants actually came with a built-in MP3 player holder. His reaction: “Cool! . . . what’s an MP3 player?” Read more →
Geometry or Epistemology?
With school starting up in a couple of days, my wife is trying to get our boy in an academic frame of mind . She has him doing some exercises from a geometry workbook and of course he’s not interested. “I can’t tell if these lines are exactly alike,” he says. Holds the book up to his face. “They look exactly alike . . .” Call me biased, but turning the whole exercise into a philosophical problem, rather than just saying “I don’t want to do this,” is a pretty sophisticated plan of attack for a 9-year-old. Read more →
Editor Dies in Fall
A NY Times business editor took an apparently intentional header off the 15th floor of the Times building. Too bad he wasn’t the crossword editor, it would have made a better headline. You’d want to work the phrase “15 Down” into it . . . Read more →
Overheard
A brief conversation between Victor, one of our project managers, and our Sales VP as Victor is walking out of the VP’s office: VP: You’re the greatest! VICTOR: I’m trying. VP (louder now, as Victor is halfway down the hall): Thanks, Wayne! Read more →
Talking to Your Kids
ME: I hope when you and Jeremy are over at Jessica’s house, that you include her in your activities, not just ignore her because she’s a girl and do your own stuff. HIM: Dude, she’s a STU-pido! Read more →
At the Ballpark
Woman collapses, dies in Orlando Rays’ minor-league promotion — ESPN.com Nothing like this ever happens when I go to the ballpark. The story doesn’t give the woman’s height and weight — it may have been newsworthy in that 28-year-old women normally don’t keel over and die after a short run. At least one paper elected — somewhat insensitively, I think — to run news of the woman’s death in a baseball roundup column, immediately followed by the mesmerizing news that the Blue Jays activated Carlos Delgado from the 15-day DL. Read more →
“Hiring the Best” Explained
An employer is always somewhat reassured by the ignominiousness of his staff. At all costs the slave should be slightly, even much, to be despised. A mass of chronic blemishes, moral and physical, are a justification of the fate which is overwhelming him. The world gets along better that way, because then each man stands in it in the place he deserves. A being who is useful to you should be low, flat, prone to weakness; that is what’s comforting; especially as Baryton paid us really very badly. In cases of acute avarice like this, employers are always a bit suspicious and uneasy. A failure, a debauchee, a black sheep, a devoted black sheep, all that made sense, justified things, fitted in, in fact. Baryton would have been on the whole rather pleased if I had been slightly wanted by the police. That always makes for real devotion. — Louis-Ferdinand… Read more →
Introducing a 9-Year-Old to Van Morrison
I can hear her heartbeat for a thousand miles . . . “That’s impossible!” Read more →
Soccer Balls
Testicle cancer rates for World Cup nations ranked Like they say, here’s one that won’t show up in the box score . . . Read more →
Quietus
ORANGE COUNTY, CA – A 26-year-old Sacramento man was stabbed to death late Tuesday in front of a Garden Grove apartment where he was visiting residents, police said. — The Orange County Register Probably the only way to stop him whining about the Lakers-Kings series . . . Read more →
Watching the NBA Finals with a 3rd Grader
The Nets have new uniforms. See, it says ‘New Jersey’ right on the front. On Nets guard Lucious Harris shooting 2-for-23: “They’d be better off having Lucious Malfoy [a wizard in the Harry Potter books]. He could point his wand at the ball and make it go in the basket. Read more →
Another Difference Between USC and UCLA
NBC analyst Bill Walton attended UCLA. FOX Sports analysts Marques Johnson and Jack Haley also went to UCLA. Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss attended USC. Read more →
Coherence
The Vatican’s Fides news service weighs in on the fashion of wearing crosses decorated with diamonds and other precious stones: Is it consistent with the Gospel to spend millions on a copy of the sacred symbol of the Christian faith and perhaps forget that there are people all over the world who suffer and die of hunger? In other Church news, Time magazine’s report on church finances indicates that Boston’s Cardinal Law lives in a $130 million residence, the Detroit diocese owns an $18 million golf and conference center, and the Providence diocese owns a $22 million dollar mansion that it rents out for parties. Meanwhile, the cardinal of the Chicago diocese has to make do with a $10 million residence, which may need to be sold off to cover sex-abuse claims. Read more →
Embracing Couple Killed By Train
A young couple in New Jersey held hands and stepped in front of an Amtrak train, electing to be simultaneously obliterated in one final embrace. Relatives told The Associated Press that the couple were drug addicts who had been evicted from their apartment and saw suicide as their only way out, which takes a lot of the romance out of the story as far as I’m concerned . . . Read more →