When the Wife and I got married, we were living in Eugene and we had one car — a Mazda 626 that she had purchased in graduate school. This worked out fine, as long as we didn’t have kids and I could ride my bike to work.
However, once we had a house, and I had [...]

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“From the Gospel of Trixie” is a little character study I did over Memorial Day weekend. The truth is, the bare bones of the scene got stuck in my head and just kept playing themselves out. I decided I had to write it up just to exorcise them.
This represents a real departure for me, as [...]

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A friend of mine drew my attention to the Esquire article “Greetings from Idiot America” from 2005. The author describes an America where intellect and education have somehow become suspect, and decisions are increasingly being made from “The Gut”, rather than through some cold-blooded analysis by some ivory-tower elitist. The author uses the Intelligent Design [...]

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I just had my regular morning meeting with my interim assistant. He let me know that in his opinion, in order to be effective in the position, my assistant would have to have excellent organizational skills, a broad knowledge of both US and foreign patent practice, and a great deal of experience.
He then explained further [...]

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How is it that a 13-year-old would not understand that it is okay for Dad to open a can of paint with a screwdriver, but it is NOT OK for HER to open a can of shellac with Dad’s best wood chisel??

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Last Thursday was the “World’s Fair” at my daughter’s middle school. It was also the debut of this year’s marching band, and therefore the debut of my daughter IN a marching band. She is playing sousaphone–the few, the proud, the very low.
I’ve discussed my feelings about school functions previously. To be succinct, they are an [...]

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