Blog

I am becoming disillusioned with competition (political contests being a particularly nasty example of it) and suspicious of the notion that it’s the best way to progress as an individual or a society. There’s always a stronger opponent, a younger, more attractive...

Clearing the meadow in front of my old house and the area around the two barns with the bush hog went pretty well, considering my skill level.    I’m starting to remember things, like the fact that the rear wheels have separate brake pedals, making very...

If the weather’s good and I can get my early morning stuff taken care of, I’m heading down to the farm tomorrow to do some bush-hogging.  Owning property that needs care and upkeep is not new to me, but this is going to be different than building the house we’re...

Looking back on my career in education, working with at-risk teens in a variety of settings, one thing that was becoming clear to me while I was in the middle of my work is painfully obvious with the benefit of distance. Reward and punishment, point systems, levels,...

The late night chanting of the insects is loud enough to be heard from inside; out on the back deck it’s almost deafening. We’re into summer now, trying to keep enough water on the garden to keep the vegetables healthy until the next rain and getting done what we can...

As I close in on my seventy-second birthday, I’m spending more time thinking about being old. I applaud the elders who can still run marathons, jump from airplanes, maintain the musculature of a much younger person, and so on, but I’m not one of those folks. Actually...

The noise from the fireworks is getting louder as the evening goes on. The official celebration downtown, about fifteen miles away, ended not long ago and the backyard celebrations are cranking up.  There was a time when I enjoyed fireworks, even went to Boomsday...

Sweeping back the ocean.  I have friends with strong feelings about AI, and they talk about limiting its incursion into one area of life or another. I’m afraid this is doomed to failure. Thirty or so years ago, when the internet began to enter public life, I...

I’m experiencing the same insights with Tim, the voice actor who is turning the Boone Series into audiobooks, that I did with Alex, the illustrator of my children’s books. Both of them, capable artists in their own right, bring out facets of my work I didn’t know were...