Kris and I had a good trip to San Juan Island. We didn’t do much besides laze around. We chose to go in early October because peak season has ended and prices on most things (like our bed and breakfast) had dropped. We gambled on the weather, of course — if it were always nice …

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Half Full or Half Empty?

Kris and I are taking a short vacation to Washington State’s San Juan Islands. “What time does the ferry leave from Anacortes?” I asked last night before bed. We were planning our agenda. “5:25,” Kris said. “And if we miss that, the last ferry is at 6:00. What time do you think we should leave?” …

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Connections to the Cosmos

Over the past few years, I’ve accumulated a lot of Amazon credit by selling books on my various web sites. The problem is, I accumulate it faster than I can spend it. Sometimes I buy comics. Sometimes Kris buys something for herself. But mostly it just sits there, unused. Today I decided to splurge a …

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Self-Disciplinarian

It sucks to have a lack of self-discipline. The month of August was rough for me. For a variety of reasons, I was under tremendous stress. My response was to do all the bad things I could think of, and do them a lot. I ate a lot of junk food. I drank a lot …

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More from the J.D. and Kris show. I’m upstairs, eating my dinner and answering e-mail. Kris is downstairs making a taco salad. She stops moving around, comes to the bottom of the stairs, and in a whiney/sad/bewildered voice, says, “Jay Deeeeee…..” I know I’ve done something wrong, and I wrack my brain to think of …

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Behind the Scenes at Pok Pok

Every evening it’s a struggle to keep from heading north to Pok Pok. I love Ike’s Vietnamese fish-sauce wings with a tamarind whiskey sour. Yum. Amy Jo forwarded this short video of Pok Pok’s owner Andy Ricker describing his inspiration for the restaurant: Now The Oregonian reports that Ricker plans to open Ping, a Chinese …

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My Wife Is Sometimes Wrong

Toto vomited on the bed again today. She does this all the time. It’s not so bad if we discover the hairball midday, but it’s kind of a pain if we don’t notice it until we’re ready for bed. This time was sort of in between. Kris happened to wander into the bedroom just after …

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The Promise of Winter

The past two days have been strongly autumnal. The high temperatures have been in the low sixties, even though the sun has shone lazily through light clouds. The nights are almost cold. The lawn has begun to turn green again, a month earlier than I’d expect it to do so. This evening, I worked in …

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Last night, I made what may be an important move in my attempt to get my electronic life under control. I separated my work e-mail from my personal e-mail. I’ve complained for months that I’m overwhelmed by my e-mail load. I’m also overwhelmed by my browser tabs and my text documents. Things are out of …

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Building Great Sentences

This is how geeky I am (as if you all needed another example). For years, I’ve bemoaned the fact that I’ve been unable to find a good college-level grammar class to take. All of the college-level grammar classes around here are remedial. I don’t want a remedial grammar class. I want an advanced grammar class …

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