Archive for January 2012
Untrustworthy narrator
On Wednesday my daughter will turn three years old. Ever since we discovered that my wife was pregnant (May 14, 2008), I have written a daily blog to our daughter entitled Greetings Little One. It contains stories, observations, bits of wisdom, photos, videos, and the like. A thorough recounting of the thoughts, feelings, and events…
Read MoreGratitude journal: Fraidy-cats
Tonight I am grateful to all the people of Connecticut who find it too dangerous or too inconvenient to leave their homes as the clouds overhead dump three or four inches of snow on our highways and streets. I get so much done during a snowstorm. Super markets, gas stations, banks, and restaurants are all…
Read MoreThe many covers of SOMETHING MISSING
By reader request, the following are the various covers of my first novel, Something Missing. The book’s foreign rights were also purchased in Russia and two other countries, but I have yet to see the cover art for these yet. ______________________________________________ US trade paperback and large print editions: Japanese edition: Korean edition (retitled THE VERY…
Read MoreYou are probably stupid in comparison to your children, and you only have your parents to blame
A study was released this week reiterating the dangers of drinking alcohol while pregnant and identifying the end of the first trimester as the most dangerous time for a pregnant woman to consume alcohol. The end of the first trimester appears to be the period when alcohol can wreak the most havoc on fetal development,…
Read MoreA Charlie Brown Christmas, again and again and again
When my wife’s parents bought this book and recorded themselves reading it (which is a clever idea), the intent was for my daughter to be able to open the book and listen to it read aloud without the assistance of another adult. This was not to be. For reasons known only to her, Clara has…
Read MoreNick Bottom saves the day
Tonight I am thankful for Nick Bottom, the weaver-turned-actor from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. When every other joke or bit of amusement is flying over the heads of my fifth grader students, I can always rely on Nick Bottom’s amusing last name to garner a laugh and justify my claim that this play is…
Read MoreIn the company of greatness
My last name may have caused a kerfuffle in the UK, but it always places me in good company on the bookshelf, as one kind reader pointed out to me today:
Read MoreTowers and castles and monuments, oh my!
Almost overnight, my daughter has gone from a three or four block tower builder into someone much more ambitious and highly skilled. I’d like to think that she is constructing elaborate monuments to her father, but she has yet to express this sentiment in anything but her art. That’s alright. I’m a patient man.
Read MoreThe reason that you are trying to lose weight could be the key to your success or failure
Since 2010, I have lost 55 pounds. I still get asked how I managed to accomplish this weight loss, and my standard (and slightly annoying) answer is that I decided to eat a little less and exercise more. In reality, this means that I counted calories for the first year, reduced my portion size at…
Read MoreGratitude journal: My wife’s tears
Tonight I am grateful for my wife’s propensity to become teary-eyed when one of her students experiences success. Today I watched her eyes fill up with tears in front of my class after examining the recent scores of a student with whom we both work. She’s gone from classroom teacher to reading teacher and is…
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