I am still here. Haven’t done a lot of blogging lately, mostly becuase my attention is being paid to Ryan, and Jess, and doing a lot of offline writing. Yes, I have started my memoirs. Yes, I know what that sounds like. I’m about 7,000 words into a planned 60,000, and I’m finding the writing to be a relaxing and easy experience so far. Updates to follow.
Being a Man
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about what it takes to be a good man. Here are some of my thoughts. The biggest thing about being a man is to have courage. Sometimes, we have things happen in our lives that make us afraid. Maybe we are facing a big decision, or a […]
Want
Fear is powerful. It can move people to heroic acts of survival; it can leave others to cower in terror; it can bring out the best and the worst in us. Fear of the unknown is strong. It can stop us dead in our tracks, preventing us from doing the things we need to do […]
Lately
I’ve been writing few things lately, mostly because I’ve been spending most of my time chatting with Ryan. So, here are a few random highlights, to keep y’all in the loop. Work has been interesting. Wrapped the most recent version of the Revenue Cycle Dashboards this week — an interesting project, which is going well. […]
Diction
More than once, I’ve been taken to task about my language. It’s been suggested to me that my word choices leave people confused, or that my sentence structures — even in plain speech — are “too smart.” That is, uniformly condescending to my listeners. I just browsed some of my writing from my early undergrad […]
Perceiving Is Believing
There was an excellent column by David Brooks in today’s New York Times; he argued that the financial meltdown may prompt a “behavioral revolution” that, having finally acknowledged the fallibility of our collective risk assessment, will shift focus among economists from the determination of self-interest to the mechanism of perception during the economic decision-making process. […]
Act V, Scene 1
I emptied my office this evening. After seven months of dithering along, building infrastructure while steadfastly avoiding client-seeking, I decided enough was enough. Although I’m not shutting down Gillikin Consulting — far from it! — I divested myself of a commercial rent payment that was not-at-all offset by business revenue. It makes no sense to […]
Perizoma
Perizoma. It is a Latin word with an origin in Greek; it means “loincloth.” In classical times, the term was used sparingly; there are not too terribly many documented uses of it in the Patrologia Latina. Yet the word has a fascinating history. In Jerome’s Vulgate, perizoma is used twice: once to refer to the […]
Halloween! Yay!
I am presently in the middle of a fairly busy time. Details are as follows: On Tuesday, I went out for drinks with an acquaintance, then met Tony for some conversation at Applebees. On Wednesday, I covered Confirmations at the cathedral. On Thursday, I ended up at Kava, talking to (Grand Rapids) Jen, and doing […]
Dry Powder
Every now and then, I’m privileged to witness a moment of genuine growth in another. Today was just such a day. After weeks of hectoring and prodding by me and by his own conscience, a dear friend of mine took the very significant step of ending a serious — and seriously complicated — long-distance relationship. […]