Monthly Archives: July 2006

The urban portion of our vacation is now complete. After a huge dinner featuring veal loin and large quantities of Montepulciano at Philadelphia’s Pompeii restaurant, I’m not good for much more than a few ramblings about the trip. Sorry, no … Continue reading →

As I sit here in the lobby of the Holiday Inn in rainy Bangor, Maine, I get the vague sense that this town has something to do with Paul Bunyan. Anyhoo, the Maine section of our trip has finally come … Continue reading →

I’ve just finished reading David Foster Wallace’s essay “Consider the Lobster” from the book of the same name. Under the auspices of a trip to the Maine Lobster Festival, Wallace spends most of the essay discussing whether it’s ethical to … Continue reading →

If you watch any American road trip movie, you know that driving across America is a quirky journey on backroads through towns full of fascinating characters. This, of course, is a lie. Traveling across America, for most of us, involves … Continue reading →

This year’s family vacation has no coherent theme. While last year, we could tell people we’d be going on a grand tour of the southwest USA, this year, things are different. I’ve resorted to selective description: Q: So, you doing … Continue reading →

Now that I’m apparently a blogger of status, occasionally I get emails from bloggers just starting out, asking how they can be as rich and famous as me. Short answer: get a part-time job at McDonalds. You’ll make more, work … Continue reading →

This year, for the first time, I attended my town’s Fourth of July spectacle. It was typical Independence Day nonsense, with a big picnic on the baseball field, a live band (Why do these things always feature '50s music? If … Continue reading →

Nature has a list of 50 Popular Science Blogs. Although they don’t explicitly rank them, and though some key blogs appear to be missing from the list, I’m not going to let that stop me from claiming in query letters … Continue reading →