A couple of years ago, we got a nasty shock when my 98-year-old great-aunt died unexpectedly. It’s happened again, with her sister Ethel (known to a lot of the family as “Auntie Sis,” because she had the same first name as her mother, my great-grandmother), who died in her sleep last Sunday night. She would’ve… Continue reading Ethel Stevens, 1915-2015
Category: Personal
Big Blog News: I’m Now Also at Forbes
I hinted once or twice that I had news coming, and this is it: I’ve signed up to be a blog contributor at Forbes writing about, well, the sorts of things I usually write about. I’m pretty excited about the chance to connect with a new audience; the fact that they’re paying me doesn’t hurt,… Continue reading Big Blog News: I’m Now Also at Forbes
Upcoming Talks: New Paltz Tonight, Nashville Next Week
I keep forgetting to mention these, but I have two talks coming up: 1) Tonight, March 17, I’m talking about Eureka to the Mid-Hudson Astronomical Association on the campus of SUNY New Paltz. This is a version of the talk I gave in Bristol, UK over the summer, but with the soccer content replaced with… Continue reading Upcoming Talks: New Paltz Tonight, Nashville Next Week
The Typing Cure
One of the things I miss about not being able to follow college basketball these days is that I don’t really know enough about the state of the game to understand Mark Titus’s columns at Grantland. They’re kind of sophomoric, but you know, a little of that is sometimes good, and I always enjoyed reading… Continue reading The Typing Cure
Terry Pratchett, RIP
Sir Terry Pratchett, author of some mind-boggling number of books, mostly the comic-fantasy Discworld series, died yesterday. He had been diagnosed with a kind of early-onset Alzheimer’s back in 2007, a particularly cruel fate for a writer, but faced it with an impressive degree of grace, and kept writing almost to the end. And, indeed,… Continue reading Terry Pratchett, RIP
Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist, Now in a Different Voice
Kate’s a big consumer of audio books, but I’ve never been able to listen to them. About five minutes in, I doze right off, every time. However, I know there are a lot of folks like Kate who love audio books and listen to them while commuting, so I’m very happy to announce that Audible… Continue reading Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist, Now in a Different Voice
Happy Birthday, Grums
Today is my grandmother’s 90th birthday: born on this date in 1925 in the Bronx, the seventh of eight kids. She moved out to Long Island circa WWII, and has lived there ever since. Many of my favorite childhood memories involve visiting her in Mineola. Back in the 70’s, she used to host me and… Continue reading Happy Birthday, Grums
The Two-Box Addition Game
SteelyKid’s school does a “March Math Madness” thing, and this year all the kids in her class are being asked to practice “Math Facts” for ten minutes a night. This appears to be motivated by some requirement that students be able to rattle off basic addition problems at high speed. So there are flash cards… Continue reading The Two-Box Addition Game
SteelyKid, Space-Babies, and Transformative Music
As previously mentioned, SteelyKid has started to get into pop music. In addition to the songs in that post, she’s very fond of Katy Perry’s “Roar,” like every other pre-teen girl in the country, and also this Taylor Swift song: I’ve seen a bunch of people rave about this, but honestly, I found it pretty… Continue reading SteelyKid, Space-Babies, and Transformative Music
In Which I Am Outwitted by a Six-Year-Old
SteelyKid has developed a habit of not answering questions, whether because she’s genuinely zoning out, or just not acknowledging adults, it’s not clear. (She’s going to be a real joy when she’s a teenager, I can tell…) In retaliation, I’ve started giving imaginary answers for her, which generall snaps her out of it, but I’ve… Continue reading In Which I Am Outwitted by a Six-Year-Old