Year: 2017
Prayer And Priorities
Tonight before bed, both our sons (eight and six) suddenly* decided they wanted to pray**. Since we choose to allow our kids the freedom to believe what they want, I didn’t object in the least. I exercized self-restraint, and refrained from forcing my own secular world-view on them. I merely explained what kind of things […]
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A Guide to Solving Rubik’s Cube
Blast from the past: my not-quite-eight-year-old son suddenly wanted to own a Rubik’s Cube. A couple of his classmates had one, and he was fascinated with the colorful 3D puzzle. I used to own a bunch myself, and had a method of solving the thing memorized from a convenient little booklet. Unfortunately, we had recently […]
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A password for my password
Underwear? Check! Toothbrush? Check! Dutch cheeses and beers? Check! Microsoft Surface for the required writing and critiquing? Check! This morning at nine, my checklist was already complete for the tenth anniversary edition of the Villa Diodati Expat Writers Workshop. My suitcase waited by the door; I’d even put my coat within reach. I’d even checked my […]
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Customer Service Done Properly
Attempted Logistics – The Continuing Ineptness of I-Parcel – How I-Parcel Managed To See The Future (Or Lie) – The End Of the I-Parcel Affair – The Saga of UPS and i-Parcel Continues – Customer Service Done Properly After half a year of atrocious customer service from UPC i-Parcel, I finally got around to notifying Amazon […]
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Fixing WiFi Internet Speed Issues
This is far from comprehensive, but probably useful for others than myself. This post details the troubleshooting steps I went through after my internet speed dropped dramatically at home, from a normal 50-100 Mbps or more to 3 or (much) less, with intermittent dropouts, much fluctuation, and the accompanying slow or absent loading of web […]
Read MoreThe Saga of UPS and I-Parcel Continues
Attempted Logistics – The Continuing Ineptness of I-Parcel – How I-Parcel Managed To See The Future (Or Lie) – The End Of the I-Parcel Affair – The Saga of UPS and i-Parcel Continues – Customer Service Done Properly And then, five months later, a Twitter user who suffered through the same frustrating ineptness from UPS I-Parcel […]
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On Perseverance, Running, and Writing a Novel
A year ago, I didn’t think I was capable of a sustained 5-minute run. Today, I ran my second uninterrupted 5km. This september, I’ll run my first 5 mile meet. A few years ago, I felt a sense of accomplishment if I managed to write a mere two short stories in any given year. Last […]
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War for the Planet of the Apes: A Technically Perfect Monstrosity
I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I’ve walked out of a movie theater halfway through a movie. My attempt at watching “War for the Planet of the Apes” is the third such occasion. And to think I had such high hopes! I can only conclude that everyone who rated the […]
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Halfway To 125K
After the success of last year’s attempt to write 100K words, I upped the ante in 2017 and set my sights for 125K. And lo and behold: with a day left in the first half of the year, 62501 words have already been written! I can’t sing the praise of the Beeminder goal tracking tool […]
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The End Of The I-Parcel Affair
Attempted Logistics – The Continuing Ineptness of I-Parcel – How I-Parcel Managed To See The Future (Or Lie) – The End Of the I-Parcel Affair – The Saga of UPS and i-Parcel Continues – Customer Service Done Properly Sadly, the Case of the Misplaced Parcel has petered out without a satisfying conclusion one way or the […]
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