Sometimes when my reasonably fine life gets to be too much, I pull out my clarinet from its beaten case with the sides all sliced and peeling from when it faced various indignities on long ago band trips. I open the metal clasps on the side and look into that velvet-lined interior to find the… Read more
I once was quite certain I would be a German teacher. I knew like I knew that German was fabulous, and I had spent plenty of time already studying it (like 2 years). I transferred from the University of Washington to Western Washington University with the more than rather dour Herr Brockhaus because I was so… Read more
The wrecking balls plan to smash down Auburn High School this summer so I decided to take one last look during the open house for alumni and friends. I don’t remember setting foot in the place since I graduated 25 years ago. I’m still unsure how I feel about saying goodbye to those cracked and beat… Read more
The other day in my 1000 Places to Visit Before you Die calendar, I saw Chuuk Lagoon. It sits in the Pacific, far out and filled with sunken Japanese ships. Because it was the naval base for most of the Japanese Imperial fleet, the U.S. bombed the lagoon in 1944. Now it’s a graveyard and… Read more
After a day in Tian An Men Square with a trip to the mausoleum to see Mao Tse Tung, I stayed in a hotel nearby with many other tourists. I went down to the lobby to write for my first NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) because my mother was sleeping in our hotel room. I… Read more
In a change from my usual programming, I am posting a math problem. Which goes to show that you never can tell what you will end up doing in your life. I shared this problem on Facebook: Optional Math Problem (courtesy of the math teacher who shares my office): Use any operation (addition, subtraction, etc.) between… Read more
As I painted my son’s ceilings over spring break, I listened to the the radio streaming from my computer in the next room. A piece came on about our brains and the effects of skimming material while surfing the Internet in our Information Age. Maryanne Wolf, a cognitive neuroscientist at Tufts University, said that we have… Read more
Not too long after I started working with the Ukrainian welders, I began a class with Vietnamese studying Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC). This class was much smaller – about 5 instead of 25 -and much quieter. Many of them had come to the U.S. when the war ended in 1975 and wanted me… Read more