Archive for February 2024

I was speaking to a business associate last week. She and I exchange a great deal of work regularly. We have quite a few ongoing projects at the moment. Amid the conversation, she said, “Is it better if I send you an email containing a link to each project or one large email containing all…

A client recently told me that he can only write at a particular time of the day and only on certain days. This was not the result of a tight schedule or the demands of work or parenting. His brain simply doesn’t function well at specific parts of the day. I told him that J.D.…

Is it possible to both love and hate an idea simultaneously? Yes, it is. A group of citizens from Valdez, Alaska, is attempting to raise $125,000 to install a life-sized bronze statue dedicated to William T. Riker, a Star Trek character who will be born in Valdez on August 19, 2335. Riker, the first officer…

My friend, Danny, passed away a little while back. On Saturday, I attended his memorial service. I expressed my condolences to his children and brother and said goodbye to my friend. On the long drive home, I thought about the one million memories we built together in the years we spent as friends. I thought…

Fourteen years ago, Elysha and I had a disagreement over a crock pot. We had recently bought our home and were merging our belongings, and the issue of my crock pot arose. Specifically, Elysha took inappropriate, unwarranted, and unilateral action against my beloved crock pot. I wrote about that moment, and 5,232 days later, I…

I’m listening to a lot of interviews in the campaign season for the Oscars: Actors, actresses, and directors are putting their names in the zeitgeist, hoping to garner more votes. As I’ve listened, I’ve found myself wondering: Why are the best acting awards still divided along gender lines? While there are athletic endeavors in which…

Data from the newsletter “8 Bits Make a Byte” from my good friends at Bedrock Data Solutions: 55 million meetings per week / 11 million per day / 1 billion per year 33% of employee’s time is spent in meetings 9% yearly increase in the number of meetings since 2000 71% of meetings are considered…

In 1989, I was eighteen years old. I’d just graduated high school and quickly moved out (not entirely by choice) on my own. I lived in a townhouse in Attleboro, Massachusetts, with two friends. Bengi was a college student, and Tom worked in manufacturing. I was managing a McDonald’s restaurant. None of us had much…

Another story about my friend, Danny, who recently passed away: Danny and I were camping with our Boy Scout troop on an autumn weekend. We had hiked deep into the forest off a dirt road in our hometown of Blackstone with about two dozen other Scouts and our Scoutmaster (and also Danny’s father), Donald Pollock.…

My friend, Danny, passed away recently. On Saturday, I’ll be attending his funeral. Danny and I spent thousands of hours together as teenagers, doing what teenage boys do once they get a driver’s license and discover girls. He is one of the primary reasons I look back upon my teenage years with such fondness. When…