Bit Errors
I encountered trio of bit errors this weekend on a family trip to Cincinnati. Each had me thinking about scale and context in different ways, and I only noticed the similarity while cropping photos of those things I found anomalous to roughly equal degrees. First up was this advertisement for Dunkin’ Donuts souvenir Mets cups, [...]
Stars & Stripes Forever
I’ve loved sailing and sailboats since the early 1970s, when my family would spend Sunday afternoons tooling around the Shrewsbury river in our day sailer. My father and I crewed for one of his friends on a 30-foot boat, competing in a summer race series that taught me (at the age of 12) what it [...]
Funky Winkerbean Moment in Korea
As a high school student, the original Funky Winkerbean comic strip captured my life pretty well, especially Harry Dinkle, the world’s greatest band director. Mr. Dinkle was fond of proclaiming that “Football fields are for band practice,” while Mr. Santoro, my own marching band director, insisted that “Band prepares you for life.” For a while, [...]
Seeing the world in black & white (cookies)
Long before Jerry Seinfeld made the black & white cookie central to a plot, I’ve been a mass consumer of these uniquely New York desserts. The perfect black and white cookie is about the diameter of your open hand, has a sponge cake like base that is soft (never crunchy, unless the cookie has been [...]
Home Is Where You Hang Your (Hard) Hat
Number one question I’m asked by people who know me through work circles: How do I find the time to manage a youth hockey team, or (until recently) sit on the Little League board? The answer is in striking the right balance between home and work life, a process made significantly easier through a flexible [...]
Life Resembles Art (Devlin)
I had one of those “plate o shrimp” weeks. It started fairly simply as I was typing up directions for our youth hockey team’s annual pilgrimage to Lake Placid, New York. The landmark I give for our arrival in Lake Placid is Art Devlin’s Olympic Motor Inn, situated at the intersection of NY State 73 [...]
Me and Bobby B
I’ve been confused for many people and many things in my 43 years. I’m frequently approached by people speaking Spanish, believing that I can help them while we’re enqueued or otherwise confounded by the public sector. Sadly, the only thing I know how to say is Yo tengo uno lapis amarillo (I have a yellow [...]
Long-Lived Architecture
I love it when live becomes somewhat self-referential, or when life imitates art that is imitating life. Yesterday morning I spoke at EUNIS 2006, an annual conference of European universities that looks at technology issues in education and research. The event was held at the University of Tartu, Estonia. The University of Tartu was established [...]
Simple Customer Service
Part of my amusement about frequent flyer status is that I’ve spent an entire work day stuck in airports, and it’s only Wednesday. Monday had me in the nation’s capital for a conference on multi-level security, with thunderstorms in both DC and Newark setting back my return by 4 hours. Last night was a trip [...]
Platinum to Ytterbium
Am I the only one who finds ascribing precious metals to loyalty levels a bit strange? For years, Continental Airlines had bronze, silver and gold status; gold became an insufficient differentiator and platinum frequent flyers arrived. When you’re stacked up 20 deep at Newark airport, the all-points goes out for Elite Access boarding and 75% [...]