life is complicated...
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Last read 3 days ago, longer than this feed's 12 hours schedule.
12:00p friday: after my folks divorced and i finished high school, i moved back to minnesota for a couple of years to live with my gram. i enrolled in the local junior college and got a part time job, made a few friends, and fit into gram's life comfortably. the first year there, gram and i spent time up in minneapolis helping her sister with all the end of life stuff. on one of those trips, i saw…
5:00p thursday: the headline " USDA drops 1.1 million rabies baits over New Hampshire, Vermont and New York " got my attention. Small planes have been flying over rural areas of northern Vermont, New Hampshire and New York, dropping flavored baits containing oral vaccines in the hopes of limiting the spread of rabies among raccoons in the region. The United States Department of Agriculture’s…
8:30p wednesday: i don't want to give the wrong impression, but psychedelic drugs have always interested me. i haven't used any since the early 70s, but the memories are strong--and good. some years after graduation i was passing through my college town so i stopped in to visit my science professors. sitting around chatting as they ate lunch, the conversation seemed to offer up a safe window to…
7:00a tuesday: it was definitely the picture that caught my eye and had me clicking on " In Portland, this soap box derby combines downhill speed with extreme pageantry ." Gravity is an inescapable force. It's why Earth has its atmosphere and orbits the sun. It can bring us to our knees. And it makes the race known as the soap box derby possible. This gravity-powered American tradition is usually…
7:00a monday: complexity in human character is pretty much a given. crime novels exploits that. it makes a good one, a thriller. broken harbor by tana french captures all that complexity as it explores a horrific crime set in ireland during the "great recession." for many, it definitely classifies as thrilling. It's possibly the most perfect post-crash setting for a slice of genuinely disturbing…
8:00a sunday: the other day i posted a twinge of envy-jealousy, " going solo around the arctic " but given the latest news, " Sailor circumnavigating the Arctic forced to go home ," i have to say, "better him, than me." he gives npr's scott detrow the basics: MATT RUTHERFORD: Well, I was boarded by the Russian Coast Guard today. Oh, only about 24 hours into the Northern Sea route, and I already…
8:00a saturday: having spent a good deal of my life in schools, both learning and teaching, "academic integrity" is something i'm pretty familiar with. that had me paying attention to a segment on today's news, " The AI cheating disaster that forced Mexico's top university back to pen and paper ." tricia bertam gallant, a UCSD professor and author focusing on the issue, has a clear understanding…
4:30a thursday: i love a good piano player and have a couple of them on heavy rotation. i listen to three hania rani recordings all the time: " live from studio s2 ," " @arteaconcerts piano day, in paris ," and " at cercle odyssey, mexico city ." and of course jens kuross is also big in my playlist: " mix -- jens kuross ." so when i saw the news " Jon Batiste pays tribute to 2 composers who…
9:00p wednesday: "before you die, you owe it to yourself to experience a total solar eclipse." that's science writer and eclipse chaser david baron, "on a ship in the fjords of eastern Greenland. He's in the path of totality where observers will watch the moon block out the sun entirely to see the solar corona." BARON: And it's just the most glorious sight in the heavens. It looks like a halo or a…
8:00a tuesday: i can't remember too many times when i been really alone. by really, i mean if something bad happens--accident or otherwise--you could easily, likely, die. it's not necessarily an overwhelming negative, it focuses the mind on the here and now. the story of " the man circumnavigating the Arctic Ocean, alone " reminded me of a couple of solo adventures i've had in the mountains. only…
6:00a monday: together three kinds of lucky and secondhand luck * cover over 900 pages, but the story moves along and mostly, you don't notice. in the world harrison builds, st unoc university is a school for mages. as you might expect, a lot of magic goes on. there's a catch though, making magic also makes "dross" a waste product that if you run into some, bad things can happen. all that waste…
5:00p wednesday: when i saw the headline " Minnesota man prepares to cycle across Antarctica " pam was sitting next to me on the couch. i pointed to it and said, "i just emailed this guy and asked to join him." her instant, "you're kidding...right?" yeah, i'm not going to be biking across antarctica, but like the "minnesota man" ian anderson, i am always curious. anderson's answer to the "why" he…
