Yesterday marked four months since my most recent surgery, at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota. No, not going to say “four-month anniversary,” a major pet peeve, because the “anni” in “anniversary” is Latin for “year.” I regard the misuse of this term as one of the many symptoms of our ongoing decline, if not an actual cause. So far […]
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The Energy Elephant
According to a recent article [paywalled; excerpts in link] in the South China Morning Post, China is “at risk of missing its [climate] goals” unless it reins in its ambitious coal-fired power plant building program. This assumes, of course, that China was sincere when it promised to scale back it’s carbon output. Color me dubious. China’s pledge to the Paris […]
Continue readingBack in the Saddle Again. Sort of.
I am back at the office after nearly a month of recovery, following major abdominal surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. This surgery was necessary to correct damage caused by earlier surgeries, and to quash a stubborn and injurious infection left over from those earlier interventions. Many thanks to Alicia for holding down the fort while I was out […]
Continue readingHard Choices
Had an interesting week, punctuated by an extended back and forth with Dr. Cima at the Mayo Clinic, my surgeon, through the Mayo Patient Portal. I had been unclear about some of the details of the upcoming operation, so I asked some hard questions. The answers were unexpected and not what I wanted to hear. In brief: To eradicate the […]
Continue readingLess than Zero
Claudine Gay, President of Harvard, who appeared before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on December 5, drew harsh criticism, mostly from the right, mostly for her wishy-washy response to the question “Do calls for genocide against Jews violate Harvard rules of conduct?” Ultimately, she answered in the affirmative, but only after some serious waffling and squirming, in […]
Continue readingOf Road Trips and Journeys
So there I was, hauling along about 80 or so, northbound on I35 a few miles south of Waxahachie, when suddenly there was a “bang,” followed by a sharp drop in speed and a loud, rhythmic popping sound at a rapid tempo, which dropped from prestissimo to andante as I decelerated. Instantly, multiple warning lights flashed red alert. My first […]
Continue readingYet Another Milestone
Today marks the twentieth anniversary of Computer Medic as a brick-and-mortar business. By 2003, I had been working out of my house for several years. But you can only go so far with that arrangement. People don’t take you seriously unless and until you have a physical location. So I was looking to take it up a notch. A lady […]
Continue readingA Very Long Year Indeed
Today, February 21, marks the first anniversary of my cancer diagnosis. An eventful year, as you might imagine. It’s all better now, but for a while it very much wasn’t. For some folks, a cancer diagnosis is a bombshell, a bolt from the blue. Mine was more like the confirmation of a nagging suspicion, following years of minor but mostly […]
Continue readingFun Times Ahead
Back in the bad old days of the Cold War, when Russia was the USSR, its government was a black box, and the country was run by old-guard communists not kleptocrats, there was a class of experts, called Kremlinologists, whose job it was to figure out what was really happening behind the scenes, using whatever cryptic clues were visible to […]
Continue readingForward to the Past
Everything has an upside, even the decline that comes with aging. For example, thanks to slipping testosterone levels, I have developed an appreciation for musical theater. Well in fairness, it’s always been there to some degree, but I no longer bother to hide it. Anyway the girlfriend and I watched the recent remake of West Side Story over the long […]
Continue readingRecollections from a Former Life
Yesterday, May 3, marked 25 years since I left my former employment as an editor at Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Publishers. It was a warm, sunny, humid day, one of those days that finally banishes the last traces of spring. I remember standing in the parking lot for the last time, looking back at the dark green glass cube that […]
Continue readingThe Path of Greater Resistance
Or: A Skeptic’s Journey We all have our favorite topics, and those of you who have read much of this blog undoubtedly know that one of mine is Climate Change, AKA Global Warming, AKA Global Weirding, AKA Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming, AKA Climate Alarm. In this subject I have a minority viewpoint, but one that is, I think it fair […]
Continue readingDog was My Copilot
My first encounter with the midsized catahoula mix was very nearly the last. I was headed home after work, taking the back way as usual, eyes focused on the middle distance, thinking about nothing in particular, when a sudden movement from the right caught my attention. The movement continued rapidly onward, directly across my path, on a collision course with […]
Continue readingIn Memoriam
Solemn anniversary today. Is there anyone who doesn’t remember where they were and what they were doing that day, seventeen short years ago, when death descended without warning from a clear blue sky? The day began much like any other. Three hundred million Americans went about their morning routines, oblivious to the drama about to unfold. I was reading the […]
Continue readingThe Power of Conditioning
It was a silly, negligible article on what has lately become a silly, negligible website. A wiser person would have let it slide. But it poked me in a tender place, and I am not the kind of person who can just let such a thing go. So instead of shrugging it off with a sigh I took the bait. […]
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