The Year-Long Scavenger Hunt (A 2023 Reading Challenge)
Comments on blogs aren’t really a thing anymore, especially on this here blog, but I occasionally have someone pop in via WordPress Reader, I think, and while checking out the blog of one such commenter, It’s The Bageler!, I discovered “The Year-Long Scavenger Hunt” at Birdie’s Book Nook.
Stroke Me, Stroke Me — Nine Months Later
tldr: I’m doing pretty good physically now, but the mental side effects of having an unexplained stroke in the middle of a pandemic really suck. Running helps. “Go with what is. Use what happens.”
That Time I Had a Literal Stroke
Turning off the faucet after brushing my teeth, I felt a tingling sensation in my right hand that quickly raced up my arm, which was quickly replaced by racing numbness. The first thing I thought of was that “narm” scene from Six Feet Under, a show I’ve never watched but had been memed into my consciousness years ago.
Five Things: May 13, 2021
Five things for May 13, 2021. That’s it! That’s the excerpt.
Five Things: February 11, 2021
Five things for February 11, 2021. That’s it! That’s the excerpt.
Milestones, Rona’d
It’s been many, many years since I did the kind of personal blogging I started out with back when this was a blogspot site in 2003, but this year has been anything but normal and I want to document a few things, mostly for myself, so if you usually come here for rants about marketing and publishing, this ain’t it. 2020 got off to a pretty normal start, all things considered… What obviously wasn’t on the agenda was a global pandemic.
Leadership in Crisis | What I Learned From My FBF
While there are different ways to lead and different styles of leadership, without the ability to develop realistic budgets, communicate consistently and transparently with staff, and define a compelling mission and vision for all to rally around, they’re just meaningless personality traits. If it’s raining outside, don’t sing me “the sun’ll come out tomorrow,” give me a damn umbrella.
Random Thoughts on a Summer Friday (In Which I’ve Buried the Lede)
That “Local First” angle is what disturbs me the most, latching on to a legitimate movement whose most compelling hook focuses on locally sourced goods and sustainability, to support booksellers whose primary focus is usually selling the products of multi-national corporations who treat them like second-class citizens. The bookstores that are true pillars of their communities don’t need hollow slogans and dreams of going viral on YouTube, because they prove on a daily basis why they matter to their communities.
Beer Tasting Class: Off-Flavors
I signed up for a class on “common off-flavors” in beers and it turned out to be a really interesting workshop on what can go wrong in the brewing process, and why. It was led by Mary Izzet and she covered seven off-flavors, using Miller Lite as the “control beer,” with all but the last off-flavor demonstrated with it.
Writers Write, Even When They Don’t Realize It
The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn’t require any. –Russell Baker That Baker quote has been on my About Page forever, but I only just recently realized its irony