In which Newt Gingrich makes sense
Steve Kornacki’s interview with Newt Gingrich is worth a read, if only because it is a case of a senior Republican statesman (I write that word with a catch in my breath, but in context it’s the right...
View ArticleHow Alaska Airlines stays on top: watching the fundamentals
Jad Mouawad’s extensive business feature on Alaska Airlines in the NYT tells the stirring story of how Alaska Airlines, America’s most reliable airline and one of America’s financially steadiest...
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What I’m doing today: observing SimCity Day
Yeah, I know, I schlepped around Atlanta and went to a big meeting and had a big barbecue lunch and flew home and rode my motorcycle home from JFK (and, incidentally, as of today I’m the Mayor of the...
View ArticleConfiguring SimCity 5 on a Mac virtual machine
After a few days of tinkering I’ve finally gotten SimCity 5 (the new one) to play on a Mac. My configuration: Windows XP with SP3 VMware Fusion 5.02 MacBook Air, 1.8 Intel Core i7, 4MB, OS 10.8.2 It’s...
View ArticleRich Rides NYC: Riding in the Snow, March 8, 2013
Today we're on a FlyKly electric scooter (www.flykly.com), and there's no talking, just the sound of snowflakes hitting the microphone. Today's highlights: riding in the snow.
View ArticleBack in business
It’s time for me to start writing here again. I have A Lot to Say and I miss having this outlet, nevermind that it’s not at all clear whether anyone is actually reading. So I’m going to make the time...
View ArticleGetting started with AirPrint and an HP printer
When I owned my bookstore in Atlanta, I had an HP LaserJet 1200 laser printer, which I loved: it was a well-made machine that worked without complaint every day for years. But after I moved to New...
View ArticleMorning flick: “The Bottle and the Throttle” (1965)
Start off your workweek with this classic automotive safety film. It’s hard to believe that America was ever as innocent as it seems here, but I can (just barely) remember the last days of this...
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Going paperless in 2014
It’s really happening this time! I’ve been working on this over the New Year season, and I’ve now got enough momentum built up that by the end of January, more or less, all the financial files and...
View ArticleChang-Rae Lee’s new dystopian novel
I briefly met Chang-Rae Lee 25 years ago (we knew people in common), and even back then, he had a strong, memorable personality. I’ve enjoyed watching him mature as a writer: he’s one of half a dozen...
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Motorcycling in the cold
The recent polar vortex days have given me a chance to accumulate some motorbike experience in the extreme cold, including both slushy days and dry ones. I obviously stay off the roads on days when I...
View ArticleEvernote and EverClip
In the course of my ongoing shift to paperlessness, I’ve been making very heavy use of Evernote, and I want to talk a bit about how. For me, going paperless serves two related but separate aims. First,...
View ArticleHulu Plus: a treasure trove of international TV ephemera
We recently added Hulu Plus (via Roku) to our other streaming subscriptions (Netflix, Amazon Prime, and everything we get via Time Warner Cable). We did it because it was the only place to get the...
View Article13 months, 4 scars: my motorcycling damage report
I think of this motorcycling hobby that I took up at the end of 2012 as emotionally and intellectually rewarding and physically fulfilling. But periodically it’s worth taking stock of the negatives....
View ArticleI’m on a new diet. Please publicly shame me.
Having watched myself grow to gargantuan proportions as a result of my slowing metabolism (and, secondarily, as a result of my lack of exercise, although to be fair to me, the effect of the former is...
View ArticleI’m hungry!
New diet isn’t going so well. Turns out that going from 3500 calories a day down to 2000 calories a day all of a sudden isn’t so easy. I’m obviously not going to DIE, but I’m hungry and pissed off. My...
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Updating WordPress
Because I’m an old, I run my own WordPress installation (because when I got started blogging, that was more the norm than it is now, what with all the innovative content-sharing services out there...
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My robot vacuum: how incremental technology improvement plays out in real life
I’m sitting in the living room watching my Neato robot vacuum clean the house. I wouldn’t necessarily say it does a great job, and in fact most of the time I can’t quite figure out what logic it’s...
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My cocktail skills: putting in the time
About 3 years ago I set out to develop a taste for, and a competence in making, high-quality traditional cocktails like the martini, an adventure that I wrote about on this blog. It just occurred to...
View Article“Passions” as a side effect of mastery
I’m thoroughly enjoying Oliver Burkeman’s Help! How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done. Burkeman, a columnist for the Guardian, has a talent for taking the pragmatically useful elements...
View ArticleA practical exercise in stoicism: losing my wallet (or not)
With all the Oliver Burkeman reading I’ve been doing, it’s convenient that the universe saw fit to test me by giving me a lost-wallet scare today. It turns out that my wallet was waiting at home,...
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My paperless transformation is almost complete!
I’ve written before about my experiment with Shoeboxed, the service that accepts your paper clutter by mail and magically turns it into scanned documents (which, in my case, magically appear in my...
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