Most summer weekends there’s a couple motorcycle classes running in the parking lot at Bunker Hill Community College. Though I can’t say I’ve ever really wanted a motorcycle, I have always wanted to at least know how to ride one. This weekend I finally took the plunge. Here’s a picture of the bike I’m riding [...]
Since Word Hacks came out (yikes — almost 4 years ago now!), the reviews have generally been quite positive (both at Amazon and on oreilly.com). There hadn’t been a new one in some time, so I was pleasantly surprised to find this one posted just last month: This is an adventure in programmatic praxiology. It [...]
Audrey and I bought our first house in June, and all was going swimmingly, until last Monday. First, after noticing it was growing unusually humid around the dryer, we discovered the dryer vent tube was completely severed. Who knew there was a company called “Dryer Vent Wizards” — that does nothing but service dryer vents? [...]
My wife and I have been in the market for our first house for a little over a year now; the stars finally aligned recently and we pulled the trigger. Apparently we’re not alone. And from the Completely Anecdotal department, all of the property alerts I set up on Redfin while we were house hunting [...]
While looking up some loan info from MEFA (Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority), I spotted a notice on their website that they’re suspending all federal education loans (and consolidation loans): Effective July 1, 2008, MEFA is suspending all Federal education loans, including the Stafford Loan for undergraduate and graduate students, PLUS, and Graduate PLUS. Additionally, effective [...]
Recently finished, and highly recommended: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. From Chris Anderson’s review: Our brains are wired for narrative, not statistical uncertainty. And so we tell ourselves simple stories to explain complex thing we don’t–and, most importantly, can’t–know. The truth is that we have no idea why stock markets go [...]
Telling someone to “show some initiative” sounds patronizing. I suppose another way to put it is: “be your own best cheerleader — to yourself, and to those around you”. Still sounds hokey, but it’s true. Here’s two recent posts on the subject. First, Seth Godin, on the difference between getting and taking: Many employees do [...]
I travel a lot, and while Wainwright Bank here in Boston has been great, I was just so rarely near one of their ATMs when I needed cash, that I often had to swallow obnoxious ATM fees. As they say, you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone (true story: I saw them in [...]
When I was a toddler, like many other little boys, I grew very attached to a particular blanket, and insisted it join me just about everywhere I went. It was, of course a phase (unlike many adults, I don’t still have the darn thing). But I’ve recently felt myself similarly exposed, this time when working [...]
It’s not uncommon for me to have trouble falling asleep at night, and something I’ve done since I was very young to help drift off is listen to news radio. As a child growing up just outside Chicago, that meant WBBM (“Newsradio 78“; I can’t help but hear that in jingle form in my head). [...]