Category: Personal

  • Why is “me too” happening now?

    It’s challenging to go onto Facebook and Twitter right now and face the ever-swelling river of “me too” posts from women sharing their horrible stories of sexual harassment. It’s good that these posts are happening, good that it’s challenging. Part of what I find challenging is that I don’t know how to respond other than…

  • Playing “Whack-a-Mole” with Apple News on my iPhone

    I love my iPhone. The dangerous problem is that while sometimes I love it the way a writer loves a favorite pen while at other times I love it the way an alcoholic loves beer. Or like Brokeback Mountain. I wish I knew how to quit you, iPhone. Today, I had a lovers quarrel with…

  • SHORT: Don’t Miss REDEF Original on Truth in Advertising

    From the “too long for a tweet” department: I just finished Adam Wray‘s powerful Fashion REDEFined original article “With Great Power: Seth Matlins on how Advertising can Shift Culture for the Better.” It’s about Seth Matlins‘ efforts to change how advertisements featuring too-skinny and Photoshopped models body shame girls and women (men too, by the way).…

  • On Meditation: a tweet drizzle in 11 brief parts

    On meditation: a tweet drizzle (1) #mindful OK, I get it. Morning mediation is important. It creates a shock absorber in my head for the day to come, gives me resources. (2) #mindful The chattering monkeys and skittering spiders of my thoughts need taming, stilling, calming, tranquilizing (3) #mindful Inner peace is probably beyond me,…

  • The Problem with More: Coca-Cola, Electric Cars, Email, Facebook and Satisfaction

    I Pac-Man chomp my way through many articles each week, digesting most with a tiny burp and leaving them to the brass-knuckled mercies of memory.  Yet two recent pieces have stuck with me: Matt Richtel’s October 10th piece in the New York Times, “In California, Electric Cars Outpace Plugs, and Sparks Fly” and Roberto A.…

  • Notes from Bergen 4: the world is less virtual than we think

    It’s 8:30am as I begin writing this post.  Just minutes ago Kathi and our son trotted off towards the University of Bergen, where she’ll drop him off for his last day at Nygard Skole — the Norwegian immersion program he’s attended this year — before going to her last day at the University.  My daughter…

  • Daniel Kahneman kicks my ass, or Reading Fast and Slow

    Like Moe, the schoolyard bully in Calvin & Hobbes, Daniel Kahneman has taken away my cognitive lunch money for the last four years.  To be clear, it isn’t the 81-year-old Nobel laureate himself: it’s his best-selling 2011 book Thinking Fast and Slow. Let me back up. I read fiction quickly, sometimes gobbling up a novel…

  • “Change Your Life” Productivity Apps & How to Use Them— Updated!

    I first wrote about the suite of applications, services, products and gadgets I use to keep my head above water almost three years ago.  In the intervening time things have changed (Smartr/Xobni, for example, has gone away), hence this fresh list. Here are my 14 “Change Your Life” apps and how I use them. Please…

  • Vonage = a Practical Tip when Moving Abroad (Notes from Bergen)

    From the “Department of Things I Wish I’d Taken Care of Faster” Department… Executive Summary of this post: if you’re moving out of your home country, then get a VOIP line that lets your relatives call as if you’re down the street. The Story: Before we left Oregon at the end of last summer for…

  • Thanks to the Kindest of Strangers

    Dear Reader, please help me get this post to Charlie, my hat rescuer, so that he knows how grateful I am. The Story: If you’ve seen me or photos of me the last few years, then chances are you’ve seen me wearing this cap: The cap is from the Goorin Bros shop on NW23rd Street  in Portland,…