GRIN & BARE IT

Read (and subscribe to) Grin and Bare It, my daily blog on storytelling, productivity, current events, teaching, my family, and other musings.

I have been posting to this blog every day since 2005.

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Zuckerberg’s fragility on display

The supplication of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has been both transparent, disappointing, and pathetic — a desperate attempt to gain the good graces of Donald Trump. Read More

Underwear problem solved!

I’m golfing in Orlando with friends this weekend. I flew from Connecticut on Friday night and arrived after well after midnight. When I finally made Read More

The rationale behind sexism

The United States Army hit its recruiting goals last year for the first time in several years, breaking a slump worrying Pentagon brass. The reason? Read More

Networking need not be awful

I was playing in a cornhole tournament a few years ago with a friend. Amid our abject failure — we finished in last place — Read More

Cut from the same cloth

Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, has quite the resume. He’s voiced strong opposition to removing the names of Confederate generals Read More

The wildfires of Los Angeles: Perspective and survival

On Monday, I learned that wildfires destroyed two of my clients’ homes in Los Angeles. Another client has evacuated his home, and his family is Read More

Cynobateria is smart

A new study published in Science found that cyanobacteria have a sense of the seasons. Cyanobacteria produce energy from sunlight through photosynthesis, so it would make sense Read More

The link between alcohol and cancer

I stopped drinking alcohol about 30 years ago. Other than the occasional champagne toast and the one time Elysha saw me drunk on a bottle Read More

Make it shine

Crazy fact: All the gold ever mined from the Earth would fit into a cube with edges 22 meters long — small enough to fit Read More

Why I love my students so much

One of my clients sent me a fascinating survey called the Culture Index Report. Answer a billion questions, and the results are remarkable. Not only Read More

The machines are coming for us

Elysha received an Ember mug for Christmas. An Ember mug is a temperature-controlled, battery-powered mug designed to keep your beverage at your preferred temperature for Read More

Coincidentalism: Want to join?

Looking for something new to embrace in 2025? How about this? On December 23, 1988, I was in a head-on collision in my mother’s 1976 Read More

Don’t be provoked

“When someone tries to provoke you, don’t be provoked. When someone isn’t even trying to provoke you, but you feel provoked anyway, don’t be provoked. When Read More

Fragile, frail, and frightened

A group of Costco shareholders, likely emboldened by the Supreme Court’s continued assault on the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, called on the Read More

It’s Elysha’s birthday today!

Today is Elysha’s birthday! She’s my wife, if you didn’t know. I’m honestly still astounded — at least from time to time — that she’s Read More

How to pull off a surprise birthday party for your wife

Last night, I pulled off a surprise birthday party for Elysha at Peppercorn’s in downtown Hartford. Everything was remarkably, unbelievably perfect. After months of planning, Read More

I re-wrote the Ten Commandments. My list is much better than God’s list.

Utah is seeing a brisk business for models with long hair and a beard who can passably pull off a Jesus look for family portraits Read More

My foundational texts

Writer Karen Attiah recently wrote about the pleasure of perusing other people’s personal libraries and then asked her followers about their “personal foundational texts.” — books Read More